Past, Present and Future of Hydrodynamic Research for DP Applications

MARIN has been involved in model testing for DP vessels for almost 4 decades. In 1976 a first project was carried out in which the main propeller of an offloading tanker was controlled based on the measured bow hawser tension. This basic idea was further developed into a complete DP system for use in model tests. Research topics included thruster-interaction effects, Kalman filtering and wave feed forward. The first DP projects for external clients were carried out in the early 1990s. Initially, it concerned mostly offloading tankers. Later, projects for DP assisted mooring, DP drill ships and semi-submersibles followed. Today, full DP model tests at MARIN are as common as mooring and seakeeping tests.The first simulation models for DP vessels, developed in the 1980s, only included low frequency loads and motions in the horizontal plane. Present day simulation models include all 6 degrees of freedom, as well as combined low and wave frequency motions. The simulated DP system includes all components found in real DP systems (e.g. filter, controller and allocation). At this moment, developments are ongoing to integrate the different applications of DP systems at MARIN. Modern software architecture allows the use of the same DP system in model tests, time-domain simulations and