Kongsberg signals birth of a digital twin era

Kongsberg group has announced it will increase investment in maritime digital solutions by combining Kongsberg Digital’s two maritime divisions into one brand: Digital Ocean.

Digital Ocean will combine Kongsberg Digital’s maritime digital solutions unit with its maritime simulation hub to develop and deliver maritime digital twins.

Digital twins are simulations, representing past, present and possible futures for vessels and onboard systems to help improve performance monitoring and forecasting.

“Kongsberg Digital has delivered highly realistic maritime simulation technology for decades and our experience from the energy sector has shown us how valuable simulation technology is in bringing about functional dynamic digital twins,” said Kongsberg Digital president and Kongsberg group executive vice president Hege Skryseth.

“We will be breaking new ground on the development of digital twins on the maritime side,” she said.

This sentiment was mirrored by Kongsberg Maritime president Egil Haugsdal, who said: “Digitalisation and the use of big data plays an important role in making shipping greener, and reaching the environmental targets set by IMO.”

Digital Ocean will be headed by former senior vice president for energy Andreas Jagtøyen. Mr Jagtøyen has a maritime background and recently led Kongsberg Digital’s development of Kognitwin Energy, its digital twin solution for the energy sector.

Mr Jagtøyen said: “From a digital twin perspective, there are synergies between what we have developed over decades on the simulation side and, more recently, on the data infrastructure side with Vessel Insight.

“More customers have reached out to learn how the development of maritime digital twins is progressing, both related to autonomous shipping and to solutions supporting more efficient and safe operation of advanced equipment and machinery on board the vessels.”

By combining sensor network data, ship operators can monitor the performance of ships and the onboard equipment against design capabilities. This information can be used for diagnosing issues and enabling proactive maintenance.

Digital twins can also be used to forecast ship and equipment performance in future operations, to enable operators to better understand vessel capabilities.

Equipment manufacturers can use digital twins to improve the design and specifications of their products.

These capabilities and applications were explained during Riviera Maritime Media’s webinar, Digital Twins: How digital twins drive vessel efficiency and voyage performance, held in May 2020.

Digital twins, voyage optimisation, data-driven performance management and intelligent monitoring of onboard equipment will be discussed in depth during Riviera’s Vessel Optimisation Webinar Week, from 7 September, use this link for more details and to register for these webinars