Decision Support System for Crane- and Lifting Operations

The main objective of the project is to provide decision support to operators and crew for a safer and more efficient implementation of various marine operations. The project is composed of partners from the entire value chain, ie ship designer, operator, shipping company and equipment supplier and 3 different research institutes. In addition, 3rd party companies that deliver products and services around industrial design, equipment and safety of marine operations will be key players in the project. During the duration of the project, improved numerical tools have been developed for calculating hydrodynamic coefficients and forces on objects have beed developed. Model tests of Edda Freya at SINTEF Ocean have been carried out for validation and verification as planned. There have been developed new algorithms for estimating sea conditions that are the most important academic contribution in the project. This method has been validated against data from the wave buoy on the Troll-C field. In 2017, we developed a pilot installed on board in M/S Edda Freya, which measures and analyse ship responses and data from the lifting crane. There is an intention among the partners to use the results to develop an industrial product.

Many decisions in subsea operations are based on operators experience and skills and not necessarily objective and quantitative real-time information. In this planned innovation, the idea is to propose additional information for better decision-making before and under crane and lifting operations. The aims of planned innovation DSS4Lifting are therefore to develop a simulation and engineering tool and also a decision support system for offshore crane and lifting operations. The tool can be used throughout the different stages of development; concept design, product development, operator planning, training and real-time decision support during real operations. The main objectives of the innovation are: 1. Simulation and engineering tool: Integration of accurate hydrodynamic models of subsea components and ship motions into the simulation tool SIMA from MARINTEK. The tool will be used as planning tool before the real operation. The tool will simulate the entire solution including the interaction from the ship motions, the crane and lifting system with foundation, lifting wire and control systems. The engineering tool will be used for virtual prototyping of crane operations before and under the actual operation and will lower the risk for human errors and increase both safety and efficiency during crane operations. Compare to today´s crane simulators for operator training using black-box models, this new engineering tool will be used for decision support onboard based on accurate data. 2. Decision Support System: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) combined with use of numerical models, optimization, available measurements and weather forecast will give more precise and relevant information for decision-making.