China's First Research Experimental Ship with Digital Twin Tech Made Maiden Voyage

Zhong Chuan

China's first intelligent research experimental ship equipped with digital twin technology was delivered and set off maiden voyage at Penglai Port in Yantai on June 30, CCTV News and Science and Technology Daily reported. Heading for Qingdao, the ship will carry out a series of experiments along the way, including verification of intelligent equipment performance indicators, environmental perception,obstacle avoidance, route replanning,and virtual and real interaction of the digital twin system.

The ship makes multiple breakthroughs in key technologies.It features multi-source information fusion and cooperative detection technologies, intelligent perception and environmental reconstruction, and digital twin of ship and environment,and built China's first maritime laboratory for testing and verifying ship intelligent systems and equipment.

The ship, named “Haitun 1”(Dolphin), is independently developed by the scientific research team of the School of Intelligent Science and Engineering of Harbin Engineering University, together with a number of advantageous units in the industry outside the university and a number of marine-related schools in the university, realizing the intelligent level of the integration system including ship overall, power, electricity, propulsion,navigation, control and perception。

With an overall length of 25 m and a displacement of 100 tons, the ship was built by Penglai Zhongbo Jinglu Shipyard in 3 years under the support of scientific research projects of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the the West Coast New Area of Qingdao and the core area of Guzhenkou.

The ship is equipped with China’s first set of ship digital twin system, for the first time established the ship digital twin technology system including ship digital modeling, model iterative evolution, real-time virtualrealty interaction, online and offline symbiosis, ship-shore mirroring,operators may exercise remote control in the thousands-miles-away Harbin intelligent ship remote control center,and make health checkup, take the pulse and make inquiry in a realtime and precision fashion for the ship engine, propulsion system, navigation system among other ship systems.

The ship is installed with the latest developed China's first set of panoramic 128 lines/2 nautical miles laser radar, 360-degree panoramic infrared vision system, 360-degree high visual range panoramic visible light visual system, autonomous recognition of sound signals among other intelligent sensing equipment,able to accurately detect small targets 0.5m above water surface within 2 nautical miles, equal to having installed multiple ＂vision, hearing＂super “eyes” and “ears”, and integrating ship solid-state radar,GNSS-R wave monitoring equipment among communication and navigation equipment, building the ship navigation situation intelligent perception system.

Moreover, the team broke through the multi-source information fusion and cooperative detection technology for the first time in China, which can provide all-weather and all-round three-dimensional reconstruction information of the navigation environment for the ship, ensuring that the ship can hear and see well and brave the wind and waves when sailing under adverse conditions such as rainy days, greasy weather and night.

Relying on the profound accumulation of marine-related technology in the past 70 years,＂Haitun 1＂ is a ＂top match＂ in more than 10 China’s firsts in the marinerelated field created by Harbin Engineering University. The ship is equipped with the first set of ship dynamic positioning (DP) system developed by the Harbin Engineering University dubbed ＂Key Stand＂,which can allow the ship to complete relevant tasks in the turbulent sea under level 4-5 sea conditions. It is also equipped with the first optical fiber inertia navigation system, BDS marine navigation system, underwater ultra-short baseline positioning system, providing underwater, water surface, aerial three-dimensional,omni-directional navigation and positioning.

The underwater acoustic technology test can hardly bear noise. In order to meet the seaborne experiment of hydroacoustic project of the ＂ace＂ technology of the Harbin Engineering University, ＂Haitun 1＂adopts the hybrid electric propulsion system developed by CSSC 704 Institute, so as to minimize the ship noise while enhancing its economy.Furthermore, the ship is equipped with an integrated information system to provide information interfaces for sea trial of the intelligent systems,equipment and sensors.

We learn that the Harbin Engineering University team will equip “Haitun 1” with drones and underwater submersibles in the future to carry out cross-discipline collaborative exploration of underwater,surface and aerial targets.