Researcher: Florian Perabo

Digitalization is shaping the maritime industry constantly, enabling innovative, efficient and sustainable solutions for future operations. The ability to recognize and exploit this shift will be crucial to effectively compete in the market. Digital approaches such as Digital Twin, Co-Simulation and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation are some of the major trends which have become key enablers for the prosperous development of the maritime industry.

A digital twin is a digital representation of a physical system (e.g. ship, power grid) used as a virtual platform to test and verify the behaviour of the real system. The simulation data is analysed and assessed to optimize the real system’s design, maintenance production and sustainability. In this manner, a superior design can be developed, and costly mistakes and rework can be prevented.

Marine systems such as ships become more complex and consist of many coupled sub-systems such as the hull and the power system. Hence, it is challenging to optimize the vessel in a holistic way. Co-simulation enables the decoupled simulation of sub-systems. To connect these sub-systems (or digital twin components), a standardized co-simulation platform including a common interface is needed. Therefore, joint industry partners established the Open Simulation Platform as a maritime industry standard for models and system simulation.

Due to a ship’s complexity, it is common to design control and mechanical systems in parallel. Therefore, testing of the control systems is only possible after integration. In a Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation, one or more components are replaced with digital twin components that can communicate with the real controller via an interface. Thus, HIL simulation allows to test and verify the behaviour of the real sub-system.

The main goal of the project is to develop a digital twin of a ship hybrid power system that will be used for the integrated design of ship power system and associated control systems. The applications include, but are not limited to, HIL testing and co-simulation in the context of the Open Simulation Platform. The modelling will be done by using MATLAB/Simulink and includes all components of the power grid, controllers and communication interfaces. The project’s expected outcomes are:

• Develop a virtual model of a ship hybrid power system including all components of the power grid and associated controllers
• Simulate, verify and tune the virtual model while including the real power system’s data to achieve a digital twin
• Preparing, performing and analysing a Hardware-in-the-Loop test
• Convert the power system’s model as Functional Mock-Up Unit including interfaces and connect it to the Open Simulation Platform

Project Partners

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI)

Open Simulation Platform (OSP)

Project Duration

August 2019 – August 2022