CENTER FOR OCEAN ENGINEERING SEMINAR
Tuesday, September 26, 12 noon, Room 2-136
“Shipboard Sea State Estimation Based On Wave‐Induced Response Measurements”
Ulrik Dam Nielsen
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
Centre for Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems, NTNU AMOS, Norwegian University
of Science and Technology
ABSTRACT:
The operation of ships requires careful monitoring of the related costs while, at the same time,
ensuring a high level of safety. A ship’s performance with respect to safety and fuel efficiency may be
compromised by the encountered waves. Consequently, it is important to estimate the surrounding sea
state, and any shipboard decision support system (DSS) needs to have as input information about the
encountered waves for the DSS to be the most accurate and reliable. Trustful means for sea state
estimation (SSE) include floating wave buoys. However, for ships navigating the oceans, wave buoys are not
practical, as sea state information in real‐time and at the actual geographical position of the ship is needed.
On the other hand, the analogy between a ship and a floating buoy naturally suggests to using the ship
itself as a wave buoy. This talk presents a status on techniques for shipboard SSE using measured vessel
responses, resembling the concept of traditional wave buoys. Moreover, newly developed ideas for
shipboard sea state estimation are introduced. The presented material is all based on the author’s personal
experience, developed within extensive work on the subject in the last fifteen years; work conducted alone
and together with national as well as international colleagues.