2023 MTS DP Conference -Day 2

Introduction: My overview of the first half of the conference can be found here and the second half was also valuable. It was good to be back at the Marine Technology Society (MTS) Dynamic Positioning (DP) Committee’s DP Conference again, to catch up with people, find out what was going on in the dynamic positioning (DP) industry, and be able to pass some of that along.

Day 2 Power: A good session, but I am a sparky.

The power session was begun by distinguished achiever, Steven Cargill (DNV), who discussed power system modeling and the importance of model based testing. Models are a representation of a more complex reality. This comes with danger but can be informative and better focuses testing. Testing validates or corrects the model, which can then be rerun for better insight, and may lead to additional or better tests. This reduces risky tests and invalid models, while improving results.

Another MTS distinguished achiever, Joey Fisher (M3 Marine), discussed effective verification and validation to prove single failure tolerance. For those wondering about the differentiation between the synonyms (I was), Joey explained them (verification = built right & validation = right system; I think old timers would say “fit for purpose”). I would argue that single fault tolerance isn’t new and is required by IMO MSC. 645 1.3.8. Things don’t have to be new to be good. Joey provided a good overview of the trade-offs between competing requirements, trials as verification, and the need for vendor engagement, effective communication, comprehensive risk assessment, and recognition of specialist knowledge in the continual process of ongoing safety improvement.

Dairon Campos (OneStep Power) closed the session by explaining the basics of current transformers and Rogowski coils, explaining how they could go wrong, what they had found in testing various vessels, and the importance of primary current injection testing to avoid these problems and support the electrical protections that redundancy depends on. He was asked about how much primary current injection is performed (it’s improving) and about why the OneStep list of closed bus tests included items that other closed bus presentations didn’t discuss (important tests).

Day 2 Applications:

Reese Jones (K-BOS) discussed improvements in their fast (<1s), powerful, standalone, single use, kinetic blowout stopper and presented case studies where it made work in shallow water possible. They now offer light-weight BOP stacks (K-LITE) and fast pyro-kinetic disconnects (K-REDS). These help when dealing with shallow water degraded well heads.

Richard Purser (IMCA) discussed the valuable DP incident reports that IMCA produces. Reporting is still very low (170 reports out of 5k DP vessels), but very important and needs encouraged. Human, electrical, mechanical and reference problems still dominate, and the trends appear to be getting worse. He further broke down the human factors and recommended training (e.g. CPD, DP Event Bulletin drills), clear/concise decision support tools, and standardization. He overviewed the new IMCA guidance and information. I was very encouraged to see IMCA and MTS were now working closely together, rather than viewing each other as competitors like last year. We all need to help keep things safe. I asked if the drills from the DP bulletins could be worked into the IMCA DP CPD and he told us they had already incorporated some into module 5. IMCA thought they had already moved the annual incident reports from behind the paywall, so they were surprised to discover most weren’t and plan to correct that.

Chris Thayer (Thrustermaster) demonstrated their ability to relatively quickly and easily add-on thrusters and a DP system temporarily or permanently to barges and ships via four interesting projects that consisted of an African lake bound research vessel, a treasure hunter, a wind farm cable layer, and Space X landing pad drone vessels.

Day 2 Lunch: Beyond the food and the company, there was a summary of the workshop subjects and discussions (see the first report). Everyone was thanked for their work from the workshop participants to the organizers like Steve Cargill (single fault tolerance), Ari Andrade (the Petrobras force behind improving alarm management), and Chuck Centore (GATE) who kept it running.

Day 2 Sensor & Cyber:

Edmund Ceurstemont (Sonardyne) introduced a promising new shallow water position reference sensor that looks almost ready to go. The DP industry has a dangerous addition to DGPS because the targets (satellites) are already deployed and usually available and accurate. When they aren’t, it is usually a major problem. Sonardyne’s SPRINT-Nav has promise as a reverse DGPS. It looks down rather than up, doesn’t need targets applied, is tested as stable and reliable, and is almost always available in shallow water (<800m). They have been using it commercially for underwater autonomous and remote operated vehicles with great success for a while. They presented test data from three DP vessels and discussed fault resistance. It’s a high quality INS tightly coupled with four Doppler velocity log/current profile beams that “locks” onto the bottom, which corrects for vessel motion, and water current, layers, etc. It’s no wonder that ABS hinted at this reference in his wind farm presentation. I’d already questioned Sonardyne before their presentation and it looks like a very promising new shallow water position reference. Something as convenient and reliable as DGPS for shallow water would be great. Now, we just need a third reference for deep water (e.g. force reference system).

Bill Gilmour (Chevron) presented the ONYX inertial navigation (INS) centric DP position reference system. I was asked to look at this 2-3 years ago and it resulted in an article or two. The long baseline (LBL) hydro-acoustic position reference is tightly coupled with the high quality INS to reject DGPS drift and they have put HPR quality measures in place to make LBL drift less likely. The ONYX combines and tests the information from the HPR and DGPS and compares it with its own INS data to produce a relatively fault resistant combined position reference. INSs drift because accelerometers measure force not position, so it can be led astray by slow HPR or DGPS drift, as those are needed to periodically re-anchor the INS position. The vessel has an enhanced electric riser angle (ERA) system that is used as an independent check and that he thinks can be developed into a true position reference. I remember Lew Weingarth telling me ERAs would be an ideal position reference for drilling vessels but couldn't be used as such due to active riser dynamics (plus maintenance), so I asked a riser analyst at the conference and she agreed with Lew. ONYX isn’t bullet-proof, but it’s an improvement, tested, and it’s apparently easy to use. I’ve seen a glance of Kongsberg’s version that uses three different INSs do the same thing. I suspect they do that to avoid some problems.

Michael Hensley (ABS) discussed the new international association of class societies (IACS) unified cyber resilience requirements. While I was never a hacker, like many techies, I have certainly played with it in the past and have fought against careless remote access systems for years as a result. So, I see IACS closing a gaping hole in system security. IACS is slamming the gate with a lot of new requirements (E26 for ships, & E27 for systems), and vendors, shipyards, and owners of vessels contracted after July 1/24 will need to grow up. IEC 62663-3-3 is heavily referenced by the new requirements. There are already class notations out for cyber reliance and better, but the changes are still being absorbed.

Michael warned about June/23’s major changes to E22 requirements, but those changes to computer based system rules were not described. It is another area of weakness. I hope IACS read IMCA’s excellent M259 and gave it some teeth.

Day 2 Enhanced Operation:

Cinthya Lopes (Simwave) discussed using vessel specific simulator digital twins to build and test activity specific operating guidelines (ASOG). This allows safe simulation of dangerous conditions to enhance understanding, and reduce risk. The idea is to catch problems, update the ASOG to resolve them, and retest in different circumstances. While technical problems are sometimes found, communication and decision making are the main problems found and resolved. They can only simulate Kongsberg systems.

Charles Peyrega (D-ICE) presented their DASOG system that collects ASOG associated data, applies it to a digital twin of the vessel, compares it against the ASOG, and automatically updates the ASOG status to augment crew decision making. The user selects the applicable operating rules (e.g. Shell, particular field, particular operation), it runs an automatic configuration check, requires manual checks of items that aren’t monitored (e.g. manual valves), and provides a simple summary display, emergency flow charts, and history log. They had a psychologist work on it and the interface looked intuitive to me. It depends on data from the existing DP control and vessel management systems, and has a remote application that was not covered. He struggled to understand some the questions (language difference).

Tomas Canny (Kongsberg) presented an update of the Kongsberg eWSOG system first presented in 2019. He gave a brief overview of the previously presented WSOG automation, but focused on the advantages of using a remote connection to improve operating predictions. I wasn’t convinced by the two examples. We already combine weather predictions with vessel capability, and expert dynamic riser analysis based on full modeling and additional system data is to be preferred over riser prediction based on the DP control history (it provides a cross check) . Right now, the remote advantage is informing the office, but I believe that more useful applications will be found, as other industries found unexpected areas of improvement based on better data.

It was fun to watch how much interest (pictures & notes) Kongsberg and D-ICE non-presenters took in various features of the other company’s system.

My Incompetence: I did not manage to interact with all the exhibitors. I was bewitched by some who had interesting things (Sonardyne, AKA, OneStep, GE, etc.), so I need to make a better effort next year. Similarly, I didn’t get to speak to half the people that I wanted too. I should probably look at pictures before I go, so I can remember who is who. Even when I knew exactly who I was looking for and what he looked like, it took me three days to find someone and hand over his phone, which had been stuck in Canada.

Whova: This year, the conference used the Whova app to connect people and provide information. I come from a country where a duopoly makes cellphones a rip off, so it was useless to me, but I think we got more and better questions, and more interaction as a result. As an app incompetent, I carried some of the freely shared information to Linkedin (e.g. Petrobras’s DP Golden Rules and IMCA’s movement of the annual incident reports), and I see others shared there as well. I was afraid that I would wait a year for documents, because they were shared on the app and MTS no longer offer data sticks, so I took detailed notes. To my relief, MTS sent the usual post-conference email with a link to the papers and presentations, so I will get to read them while the presentations are still fresh in my memory.

Conclusion: Another great conference thanks to the hard work of the organizers, presenters, and committee members, and enhanced by the participants. Non-attendees can buy access to the papers and presentations for $100, or wait a year. The 2022 MTS DP Conference papers and presentations are now available for free. My presentation is there, but not my paper, so I will make it available as a future article. My 2022 MTS DP conference day 1 & 2 articles provide quick overviews.

Disclaimer: I am not a conference organizer nor do I hold a position in the DP committee. These are the opinions of an interested, independent, third-party, and not those of MTS. I think they do a good job.