In the present conventional shipping industry, international port entry/exit or navigating through narrow channels in Suez or Panama is performed by the pilots who go onboard each vessel, with an expense of great time and cost, surrounded by a formidable human risk factor involved in the arduous process. Once the pilot is onboard through a pilot launcher vessel or helicopter, control of the ship is handed over to the experienced pilot from the captain of the vessel to steer through the restricted channel. This study conceptualizes and tests an unmanned port/canal, entry/exit/transit topology for a future smart port using digital twin (DT)-induced unmanned surface vessel (USV) using virtual simulation. 3 DOF dynamic mathematical model of the vessel was used in MATLAB Simulink as the base of the DT model. Line of sight (LOS) guidance with a simple PID rudder controller is developed and included to complete the DT model. Finally, results were validated with the simulation of the USV DT performed in the unreal engine-based MarineSIM environment developed with the Hambanthota International Harbour in Sri Lanka as the reference smart port. Successful validation of the designed autonomous pilotage system was achieved in software-in-the-loop (SIL) test in MATLAB Simulink environment and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test in DT-based virtual environment with superlative performance.
Development of an Autonomous Pilotage for a Digital Twin-based Unmanned Surface Vessel in Virtual Reality
Lect. Notes Electrical Eng.
National Technical Seminar on Unmanned System Technology ; 2023 ; Penang, Malaysia October 02, 2023 - October 03, 2023
Proceedings of the 13th National Technical Seminar on Unmanned System Technology 2023—Volume 2 ; Chapter : 13 ; 145-166
2024-09-17
22 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
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