Ulstein Bridge Concept From vision to realisation Steering from vision

The project has delivered a complete new ship bridge concept for future offshore vessels. The new design simplifies marine user interfaces, offer flexible ergonomic workplace design and introduces new interaction technologies to increase safety and effici ency in marine operations. The design comprises of a new concept for ship bridge layout, new furniture, office workplaces and new operator consoles for navigation and maneuvering. Central in the new design is an advanced user interface that allows effi cient access to ship functionality for multiple users. The concept includes solutions for showing information according to user?s attention patterns in operations; on large screens, windows or through advanced audio. Also, new input methods such as gestur e, voice, haptic and touch have been integrated into a single user experience offering flexible and efficient use. The ergonomics of workstations have been improved by a new design that allows all physical interaction mechanisms to be positioned within c omfortable reach. In addition the design offers adaptable ergonomic support for sitting and standing in high seas and the ability to quickly change positions. The work has been based on extensive field-studies and experimentations carried out in a design laboratory established for the project. This has led to new methods and tools with the potential to improve further innovation processes for advanced marine workplaces. The results from the UBC project received DNB?s innovations award of 1,2 million kro ner in 2012 and Ulstein was nominated for Norwegian Research Council?s price for innovation in 2013. Several concepts are being launched in the market including one alarm system released in 2013.

The complexity in modern high end ship building has increased on several fronts. This is especially true for the type of ships we are talking of in this application. Very complex offshore operations demand visualisations of complex information to the offi cers on the bridge and facilitate fast and reliable control. Central topics are safety, human - computer interaction and usability and how these are interlinked. On the other hand the production processes for ship building industries is extremely complex and typically the economic structure and mode of operation causes that to a large degree innovation, development and design is done within the framework of contracted projects and in collaboration with advanced customers. For the control environment of t he bridge the situation is complicated because of the many subcontractors with different interfaces that need to be coordinated. As a result the typical modern bridge environment is a compromise and does not render the ideal or optimal workstation for the operators. It is with the increasing complexity of both production and operation now very crucial to address theses topics and to develop more strategic, innovation driven and user driven processes. The project intends to develop new innovation proces ses for advanced ship bridge design. The project brings together the advanced company Ulstein Power and Control (UPC) with the research environments at Oslo School of Architecture (AHO) and Ã…lesund University College (HiALS). This is a specially promisin g composition of industry, design and engineering knowledge that are both very well rooted in the maritime sector and that have the potential to bring new thinking to the sector. The processes will be demonstrated in a pilot delivery. Throughout the proje ct two innovative ship owners will be involved in the development. This project will put UPC in front of radical ship design and support Ulstein's image of "Turning visions into reality".