Simulation System for Ship Maneuvering Systems on Land

In order to shorten the development cycle and reduce the cost of offshore test, a novel simulation system for the ship steering on land is introduced in this paper. It consists of three modules: monitor computer module, ship model computer module and control computer module, which are respectively used to provide friendly interface for customer, simulate the dynamic behavior of the practical ship and implement the control algorithms before them being installed in the autopilot. The analysis of hardware design and corresponding software development are presented in detail. This simulation system with addible ship model database provides two kinds of simulation platform of full-digital and semi-physical, which can be used to evaluate the availability of the control algorithms and verify the performance of the autopilot. In semi-physical simulation, the control computer module is substituted by autopilot prototype. The application indicates that the system′s operation is reliable and the simulation results are believable.