A Novel Method for Building an Automatic Altering Vessel's Course System at Sea

摘要

Calculating and determining the wheel-over position usually is conducted after the following factors are known including cargo onboard, difference between the initial course and the final course, distance to the dangerous points, rate of turn (ROT), current speed and available depth of water … This procedure is often carried out manually by the Officer Of the Watch (OOW). In this article, authors introduce a novel method for building an automatic altering vessel's course system which is integrated with hardware and software is able to calculate and determine position and time of wheel-over and of giving decision to alter course in narrow channels or fairways under the effect of current with data of surrounding vessels is obtained by GPS, AIS. Building and testing this system was carried out onboard a vessel so that an automatic vessel's altering vessel's course system that is able to adapt to the real time can be achieved.