THE CLASSIFICATION OF PIPE-LAY VESSELS AND HEAVY-LIFT CRANE VESSELS

Pipe-lay vessels, heavy-lift crane vessels and dual purpose heavy-lift and pipe-lay vessels are distinct in many ways from other types of ships or offshore units. The unique functions that these vessels carry out can impact directly on the overall safety of the vessel, the personnel on-board and the potential to pollute the environment. This paper outlines some of the hull and machinery safety assurance considerations for classification and design pertinent to pipe-lay and heavy-lift operations. The considerations that are discussed in this paper include the implications of classing the vessel as a ship or an offshore unit; the interaction between classification and marine warranty; general arrangement; station-keeping; structural assessment and the interaction between safety critical systems. Specific hazards for pipe-lay vessels and their use of chemicals on-board are also discussed.

Station-Keeping Control of Autonomous and Remotely-Operated Vehicles for Free Floating Manipulation

This paper investigates the station-keeping control of autonomous and remotely-operated vehicles (ARVs) for free-floating manipulation under model uncertainties and external disturbances. A modified adaptive generalized super-twisting algorithm (AGSTA) enhanced by adaptive tracking differentiator (ATD) and reduced-order extended state observer (RESO) is proposed. The ATD is used to obtain the smooth reference signal and its derivative. The RESO is used to estimate and compensate for the model uncertainties and external disturbances in real-time, which enhances the robustness of the controller. The modified AGSTA ensures the fast convergence of the system states and maintains them in a predefined neighborhood of origin without overestimating control gains. Besides, the proposed new variable gain strategy completely avoids the control gains vibrating near the set minimum value. Thanks to the RESO, the proposed controller is model-free and can be easily implemented in practice. The stability of the closed-loop system is analyzed based on Lyapunov’s direct method in the time domain. Finally, the proposed control scheme is applied to the station-keeping control of Haidou-1 ARV, and the simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed control scheme over the original AGSTA.

Simplified Approach to Detect Satellite Maneuvers Using TLE Data and Simplified Perturbation Model Utilizing Orbital Element Variation

In this study, an algorithm to identify the maneuvers of a satellite is developed by comparing the Keplerian elements acquired from the two-line elements (TLEs) and Keplerian elements propagated from simplified perturbation models. TLEs contain a specific set of orbital elements, whereas the simplified perturbation models are used to propagate the state vectors at a given time. By comparing the corresponding Keplerian elements derived from both methods, a satellite’s maneuver is identified. This article provides an outline of the working methodology and efficacy of the method. The function of this approach is evaluated in two case studies, i.e., TOPEX/Poseidon and Envisat, whose maneuver histories are available. The same method is implemented to identify the station-keeping maneuvers for TDRS-3, whose maneuver history is not available. Results derived from the analysis indicate that maneuvers with a magnitude of even as low as cm/s are detected when the detection parameters are calibrated properly.