Floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel owner Bluewater Energy Services is working with the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) to develop an intelligent support service for dynamic positioning (DP) system operators. In a four-year project, they will test a new human-machine interface between a DP control system and operators on FPSOs.
Bluewater operates a fleet of five vessels, of which Munin, Aoka Mizu and Haewene Brim can operate in DP mode. The Dutch company’s senior mooring and subsea engineer Arjen Tjallema expects the adaptive automation platform to provide information and advice to DP operators so they can react rapidly if there is a problem. If there is a DP issue, such as a drift-off from the mooring position, then the FPSO would need to disconnect from the riser for safety reasons. This can be costly, as production operations need to be shut down. A well informed DP operator could prevent this by reacting quickly and normalising DP station keeping. However, DP operators may not be aware of the problem, or have time to react to an issue before it turns into an incident.
“Most of the time DP operators are just observers and supervisors with a low workload,” commented Mr Tjallema. “But when there is an incident, the DP operator needs to do something rapidly for the vessel to remain in the circle of safety, or to disconnect.” He explained that it is difficult to remain focused and react quickly to an issue. “It takes time to detect a fault, to identify the fault and work out what needs to be done. Then the operator needs to react.” The operator would also need to observe the DP system again.
“So we need to either make more time available, or shorten the phases in the decision and response process,” Mr Tjallema continued. “DP operators need to be prepared for sudden changes in operating the DP system.” He said operators could do other tasks on the bridge instead of just observing, if they had a smart support system. “The automatic monitoring system could call a person back to the operating station to respond to an issue. It can provide advice and support the DP operator. This would improve the situational awareness and response times, and prevent incidents.”
TNO project leader and senior researcher Hans van den Broek said the first part of the project is to develop a smart support system for DP operators on FPSOs. “An intelligent support system would assist operators to give them a better understanding of what is happening and what the problem is,” he explained. “It needs to provide smart notifications to operators, and advice. It would improve the interaction between operators and machines.”
TNO has developed the concept and has started to make it robust enough to be deployed on ships. “We want to further develop support concepts and experiment in different situations. This year [2015] we started to look at the FPSO case, where in normal situations the DP operator is not in control and could be roaming around doing other tasks on the bridge. But when there is a problem, the operator is put in the loop and needs instant situational awareness and support.” He said DP operators could have a portable device that would provide alerts and improve their situational awareness when they are elsewhere on the bridge, so they could quickly return to the station if there was a problem.
The next step in TNO’s project is to develop adaptive automation for DP on different vessel types, such as dredgers, and for vessels where different members of the bridge team could be trained to operate the DP controls. “A third stage is to look at all operations with multiple DP vessels, to develop control mechanisms and co-ordination between vessel DP teams,” said Mr van den Broek. TNO expects the project will be completed in 2018.
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