Safer ship manoeuvring from Wärtsilä

Wärtsilä has launched its latest innovation which aims to provide safer and more efficient vessel operations by reducing the risk associated with manoeuvring.

Unveiled at this year’s Seatrade Cruise Global exhibition in Florida, SmartPredict displays the vessel's predicted future position and heading, and uses proven dynamic positioning (DP) analysis algorithms to evaluate forces affecting the vessel, thereby providing advanced motion prediction. SmartPredict also features a configurable prediction time display.

Maik Stoevhase, director of ANC and integrated systems, electrical and automation at Wärtsilä Marine Solutions, said: "Allowing the operator to see into the future enables smarter and safer ship handling decisions to be made, thus lowering the risk of accidents occurring.”

He added: “We see SmartPredict as being an important step towards more automated procedures, such as docking, and eventually fully autonomous vessel manoeuvring.”

Wärtsilä's SmartPredict software module, however, utilises all of the parameters used for automated control by the DP and adjusts them for the motion characteristics of the specific vessel.

Such inputs include the vessel's current position and heading, as well as its velocity and rate of turn and all associated accelerations

The product also takes into consideration manual commands from the coordinated control joystick, and environmental input from the onboard wind sensor. These factors are all continuously evaluated to provide a constant updating of the vessel's path.