PRECISE NAVIGATION AND MANEUVERING OF A PIPE LAYING SHIP

Future undersea pipelines will be laid in deep water on obstacle-ridden sea bottoms. To avoid pipe damage, it will be necessary to navigate accurately along a pre-surveyed route and to carefully control ship movement. This will be accomplished for the new semi-submersible pipelayer. Castoro VI, by an integrated navigation and positioning system recently developed at Sperry Systems Management. For the navigation function, either a microwave or one of three medium frequency radio navigation systems will be optimally mixed with a doppler water speed and gyrocompass dead reckoning system to provide a continuous, accurate, and smooth position measurement. The mariner's task will be facilitated by having a direct readout in geographic coordinates of the computed position based on the best operating equipment. During station keeping and pipelaying, the ship is controlled automatically with respect to the navigation position by computer generated commands to twelve anchor line winches and four steerable thrusters. When piloting is required, the anchors are stowed and the difficult task of coordinating direction and thrust commands to four thrusters is assumed by the computer. The pilot has available a single joystick for translational motion, a knob for heading control and a graphic display of the navigation and control situation.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Presented at the National Marine Navigation Meeting, Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies, Linthicum Heights, Maryland, October 31-November 1, 1977.
• Corporate Authors:

  Institute of Navigation

  815 14th Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20005
• Authors:
  • Mann, J F
• Publication Date: 1977

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 35-41
• Serial:
  • Publication of: American Concrete Institute
  • Publisher: American Concrete Institute (ACI)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automatic control; Dead reckoning; Doppler navigation; Dynamic positioning; Gyrocompasses; Information display systems; Integrated systems; Maneuvering; Navigation computers; Navigation systems; Pipe laying; Radio navigation; Ship pilotage; Ships; Speedometers
• Candidate Terms: Pipe laying ships
• Old TRIS Terms: Automatic control systems; Computer aided navigation; Doppler speedometers; Integrated navigation systems; Positioning control systems
• Subject Areas: Marine Transportation; Materials; Operations and Traffic Management; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00170501
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Institute of Navigation
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 14 1978 12:00AM