Page 34: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2025)

OFFSHORE ENERGY “Ship and actuator dynamics are nonlinear and linear model-free approaches struggle to control these kinds of systems ef? ciently.” – Kalevi Tervo,

Corporate Executive Engineer and Global

Program Manager, ABB Marine & Ports

Image courtesy ABB

ABB has developed thruster models that consider the state There are also forbidden / undesired angles which typically of motion of the vessel. This is valuable when, for example, a mean angles where one thruster is ? ushing the other thruster vessel is in position but performs a heading-change maneuver. or the hull, reducing the effective thrust and increasing power

When the vessel rate of turn picks up, the thruster is travel- need as well as wear-and-tear. The ability to anticipate the fu- ling along an arc where the experienced speed of the ? ow at ture force required to accomplish a task enables the control the thruster depends on the rate of turn and the distance of system to prepare thruster angle and RPM for future needs the thruster from the center of the vessel. If the DP system using the most ef? cient angles while continuously taking into only considered zero speed, the control angles for the thrust- account the limitations of the thrusters.

ers would lead to a situation where the rudder effect of the Miros has launched a new wave and vessel motion predic- thruster is ? ghting against the thrust it produces, resulting in tion technology PredictifAI that anticipates the future to im- excessive energy consumption. prove the energy ef? ciency of DP operations. It provides accu-

Thrusters cannot change their angle or rpm in? nitely fast, rate and real-time wave, wind and current predictions up to a says Tervo. couple of minutes in advance. These are deterministic predic-

Miros has launched a new wave and vessel motion prediction technology PredictifAI™

Image courtesy Miros 34 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • April 2025

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