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MAROFF-2-Maritim virksomhet og offsh-2

Digital Twin Yard (DTYard) - An ecosystem for maritime models and digital twin simulation

Alternative title: Digital Tvilling Verft (DTVerft) - Et økosystem for modeller og simulering av digitale tvillingsystemer i maritim industri

Awarded: NOK 11.3 mill.

Project Number:

295918

Project Period:

2019 - 2022

Organisation:

The grand vision of the Digital Twin Yard (DTYard) project is to establish a maritime industry ecosystem for system simulations that facilitates efficient and effective construction of such digital twin systems and ships in a collaborative effort between stakeholders including owner, yard, equipment manufacturers and sub-suppliers. The DTYard concept includes a library where the maritime industry can share simulation models while keeping Intellectual Property (IP) concealed and source code protected. Simulation models of the ship's equipment and automation systems including actual control system software can be combined in the virtual yard, all interfaced and connected as they would be on-board the real ship. The fundamental building blocks of the DTYard ecosystem has been developed as part of the Open Simulation Platform (OSP) initiative, through collective efforts of the OSP Joint Industry Project and the projects DTYard and TwinShip (RCN project number 28073). These building blocks, further described in the following section, were openly shared with the industry in June 2020 at the website www.opensimulationplatform.com. Multiple yearly events are held to establish a user community. Presentations are publicly shared as webinars on the website. An OSP software library for co-simulation is shared as open-source software on GitHub together with demo applications and a selection of maritime simulation models facilitating the use of OSP software. An OSP Interface Specification is launched to support efficient exchange and connection of models, moving towards a new standard for sharing maritime models and performing efficient system simulations. All OSP deliverables are compliant with Functional Mockup Interface (FMI), an existing standard for model exchange. Based on OSP deliverables the DTYard partner DNV has developed “Simulation Trust Center” (STC), a web application for secure and managed sharing of models and for cost-effective large-scale simulations across organizations. The application is open for pilots and selected external customers in “private preview”. Kongsberg Maritime and DNV have developed in-house simulation capabilities to test and demonstrate interoperability between existing tools using OSP software and the OSP Interface Specification. The resulting example configurations integrate multiple ship components and control systems. Guidelines and best practice for maritime co-simulation are shared with the user community through the website www.opensimulationplatform.com and during webinars and conferences. Platform interoperability and integration of control systems have also been demonstrated and shared. Through its deliverables the DTYard project has contributed to further develop the OSP ecosystem that enable collaborative system simulations for the maritime industry, and help to solve the increasing challenges in designing, building, integrating, commissioning, operating and assuring complex, integrated systems and software. The project has also contributed to increase the awareness of OSP in the maritime industry, also internationally. New research projects are already benefitting from DTYard results by simplifying cooperation and models sharing while protecting IPR and enabling collaboration. SINTEF, DNV and Kongsberg Maritime will continue developing OSP software and related products and services through national and international collaborations.

DTYard has advanced the Open Simulation Platform (OSP) and contributed to increased awareness of OSP in the maritime industry, also internationally. OSP (and thus co-simulation) is increasingly being used by the DTYard partners in their inhouse simulators. SEACo, SEAOPS, FreeCO2ast, and EDINAF are new R&D projects partially resulting from DTYard. These projects make use of and/or further develops results and are new collaborations between two or more DTYard partners. These projects are already benefitting from DTYard results by simplifying cooperation and models sharing while protecting IPR and enabling collaboration. SEACo deals with closing some key research gaps identified through working with the OSP and DTYard. An important part of the work leading to the ideas for SEACo was done under the DTYard project. SEAOPS focus on simulation-based testing, also using OSP. The advancements of OSP during the DTYard is an enabler for this project. EDINAF is an international project funded by the European Defense Fund, where SINTEF was invited as a partner due to their work related to the OSP. SINTEF is being recognized as one of the core partners responsible for OSP, and being knowledgeable within co-simulations, which opens for new contacts and opportunities, and has broadened its network in industry and academia. The DTYard project enabled the development of the DNV Simulation Trust Center (STC). The STC implements OSP technology in an easy-to-use and secure collaboration space where stakeholders can upload and share access to component models, configure system models and run simulations. DNV firmly believes simulation will play an important role in the future digital value chain. The STC is a key element for trust in this value chain, offering a secure environment for stakeholders to collaborate in. DNV will investigate further how STC could be used to provide digital ground for future and new classification services to build upon. KM has developed a simulation platform based on the libcosim library developed in OSP. Interoperability between this new platform and other DTYard based platforms have been demonstrated by running OSP demo cases without modifications. The platform is built for distributed simulations and will be a core part of KM’s simulation infrastructure in the future. KM and DNV have gained experience with integrating models from different sources with control systems. DTYard has enabled technical developments, provided user experience, and built competence. The partners have also gained significant experience on creating FMUs from source code and exporting FMUs from simulation tools. All partners actively contributed to the development of a user community for the ecosystem. Dissemination was accomplished through the organization of webinars and conferences, publications, presentations, and lectures. The partners will continue developing OSP software and related products and services through national and international collaborations.

The grand vision of the innovation is to establish a maritime industry ecosystem for digital twin systems and vessels. The proposed ecosystem will facilitate efficient and effective construction of digital twin vessels (or virtual ships) in a collaborative effort between stakeholders including owner, yard, equipment manufacturers and sub-suppliers, and help solve the increasing challenges in designing, building, integrating, commissioning and operating complex, integrated systems and software. We define the digital twin of a ship as the collection of a large set of models and digital twin components of the ship's equipment and automation systems, all interfaced and connected as they would be on-board the real asset. The innovation name - Digital Twin Yard (DTYard) - refers to the construction stage of the digital twin since this is the key step in the collaborative effort to bring all stakeholders together in combining their models to a complete virtual ship. The DTYard ecosystem aims to address the complete asset lifecycle from design through operation, and will lead to reduction in both CAPEX and OPEX for all key stakeholders.

Funding scheme:

MAROFF-2-Maritim virksomhet og offsh-2