A Six Degrees of Freedom Ship Simulation System for Maritime Education

The title of this paper was changed from 'A Ship Simulation System for Maritime Education' to 'A Six Degrees of Freedom Ship Simulation System for Maritime Education' on 21/09/2012. The authors N Kodikara, C Keppitiyagama and R Rosa were added to the paper on 21/09/2012. This paper presents Six-degrees-of-freedom ship simulation system which allows simulated ship handling under complicated environmental conditions and threat scenarios. This system simulates real-time six degrees of freedom ship motions (pitch, heave, roll, surge, sway, and yaw) under user interactions, and environmental conditions. The simulation system consists of a ship motion prediction system and a perception enhanced immersive virtual environment with greater ecological validity. This ship motion prediction system uses a few model parameters which can be evaluated by using standard ship maneuvering test or determined easily from databases such as Lloyd’s register. This virtual environment supports multiple-display viewing that can greatly enhance user perception. Ecological environment for strong sensation of immersion is also developed. The virtual environment facilitates the incorporation of real world ships, geographical sceneries, different environmental conditions and wide range of visibility and illumination effects. This simulation system can be used to demonstrate ship motions, maneuvering tactics and assign focused missions to trainees and evaluate their performance. Trainees can use the simulation system to study at their own pace. Implementation and operational cost of this ship simulation system is only a fraction of the conventional training involving real ships. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v3i2.2847 The International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2010 03 (02) :34 - 4