Maritime Simulation News

(bymnews.com)

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has announced the grand opening of a new shiphandling and bridge operation training simulator in its Sperry Marine training center in Hamburg, Germany.

The 160-square-meter training center now offers instruction in all aspects of shiphandling and bridge operation. The courses include classroom instruction with multiple computer workstations and a complete integrated bridge system (IBS) and ship simulator.

The new simulator system includes three projectors that provide a full-motion seascape on a 4.2-meter-wide, 120-degree panoramic screen. The bridge controls, which are linked to the ship simulator, provide realistic shiphandling scenarios for various types of ships under a variety of sea conditions.

The Sperry Marine multi-console IBS installation mimics a typical ship’s bridge, including electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS) with Sperry Marine’s proprietary Voyage Management System, radars, adaptive autopilot, manual steering, engine and bow thruster controls, heading and speed indicators, and other related systems.

“This is the first Sperry Marine training center in Europe providing comprehensive programs for shiphandling and bridge operation instruction,” said J. Nolasco DaCunha, director of Northrop Grumman’s Sperry Marine Systems. “Its purpose is to provide watchstanders with training on Sperry Marine products in a controlled environment with certified, expert instructors. This will increase their confidence, provide the necessary skills when they operate the real thing at sea and ultimately enhance safety.”

“The training center at the Hamburg office was chosen for the new shiphandling and bridge operation training simulator because of its importance as a hub for the European shipbuilding and maritime industries and its convenient central location which is easily reachable from anywhere in Europe.”

Sperry Marine’s curriculum meets international requirements for ECDIS training under the 1995 amendments to the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW-95) code. The syllabus follows the International Maritime Organization model course 1.27 for the operational use of ECDIS, and all courses are taught by certified instructors.

(usatoday.com)

RENO (AP) — As a teenager, Ryan Leigh loved video games.

He still does, but some things have changed. Leigh has grown up. His games are serious.

Leigh is a graduate student in computer science at the University of Nevada, Reno, developing software programs for the Navy that simulate everything from terrorist attacks in the Persian Gulf to erratic sail boats on San Diego Bay.

“I play games and I work on them,” Leigh said. “The circle is complete.”

Leigh belongs to a team of six UNR students led by three professors that’s using sophisticated technology to improve training at the Navy’s Surface Warfare Officers School in Newport, R.I.

It’s where officers serving aboard aircraft carriers, destroyers and other vessels learn to react in a variety of situations, from overseas combat to maneuvering around dozens of weekend pleasure craft in a crowded home port.

“In San Diego harbor, we’re mostly concerned with drunk boaters,” said Lt. Ryan Aleson, the computer simulations officer at the warfare school. “We have to operate in high density areas. That’s our mission.”

So, Leigh and the rest of the UNR computer team create a three-dimensional San Diego, with hundreds of boats and ships moving in different directions ?s experienced Navy captains at the helms of some, but Saturday afternoon skippers sailing the rest.

“My interest is computer games,” said Chris Miles, another of the computer science grad students. “That’s what this is, games.”

With a purpose.

“Drive a ship in a harbor with hundreds of boats without hitting anything,” said Miles, explaining the San Diego scenario. “It’s the most interesting work. These are incredible challenges.”

In other parts of the world, challenges might include suicide attackers in small boats. Anything can happen in the computer simulations. That’s the whole idea.

“We don’t want them to follow a pre-planned script,” said Aleson, who was at UNR recently to evaluate progress on the software development that started in 2003. “We’re getting to the point where we’re getting realistic behaviors.”

The Navy asked for UNR’s help because simulations were limited to what two or three instructors could control on the video screens, usually no more than 20 ships at a time. Programs created by the UNR students and teachers will allow a computer to control hundreds of vessels for a single simulation.

“The problem they have is realism,” said Sushil Louis, director of the Evolutionary Computing Systems Laboratory at UNR. “We’re giving them the ability to make it more realistic.”

So far, the Navy has spent about $2 million on the computer war games project, which UNR professors and Navy officials estimate is about two years from completion.

“We’ve already integrated it with our (training) simulator,” Aleson said of the high-tech classroom in Newport. “It’s working.”

The classroom is a mock-up of a ship’s bridge, where the captain gives orders to the crew. Software simulations, in which ships appear as computer-generated objects in video games, are shown on large screens that officers view from the bridge, as they would at sea.

Leigh has been on the bridge. To him, it seemed real.

“After a while, I actually started feeling seasick,” Leigh said.

From the bridge, naval officers play serious war games.

“We look at terrorist threats,” Aleson said. “We look at large-scale coordinated attacks.”

They also look at crowded San Diego Bay, where one of those Saturday skippers might suddenly veer into the path of a destroyer.

“We are teaching (officers) a decision-making process,” Aleson said.

Every Navy officer assigned to a ship attends the school, which has 1,000 students a year in classes lasting up to six months. Many already have been at sea. That’s why the simulations created at UNR must be realistic.

“A lot of our students have years of experience, they know how to drive ships,” Aleson said of the officers. “If you want to create real-life behaviors, there is a lot more processing a computer has to do.”

The computer-driven ships must perform as if they had human captains.

“Move and navigate just like there’s a real person behind the wheel,” said Monica Nicolescu, a professor of computer science who specializes in robotics. “Make it realistic.”