A ship manoeuvring desktop simulator for developing and validating automatic control algorithms

This paper presents a user‐friendly simulator developed based on Windows Forms and deployed as a test bed for validating automatic control algorithms. The effectiveness of some of the integrated track controllers has been tested with free running experiments carried out in the Towing Tank for Manoeuvres in Shallow Water in Ostend, Belgium. The controllers enable a ship to follow predefined random paths with high accuracy. Ship‐to‐ship interaction is considered in some cases. Simulator environments provide useful tools for extending the number of validation scenarios, supplementing the work performed in the towing tank. The simulator is presented with a graphical user interface, aiming at providing a good user experience, numerous test scenarios and an extensively‐validated library of automatic control algorithms. With the usage of the simulator, further evaluation of developed control algorithms by implementing extensive test runs with different ships and waterways could be made. Case studies are shown to illustrate the functionality of the simulator.