Development of Ship Maneuvering Simulator based on VR Technology

Abstract

With the increase of the volume of world-wide trade, the continuous improvement of tonnage and dynamic performance of ships, and the density of ships on sea routes, the operation level of ship navigator has been challenged seriously. Therefore, it is imminent to improve the operation level of seafarers. Virtual reality technology can be used for navigator training. Environment and motion simulation, using virtual reality technology, has great application potential. In this paper, based on virtual reality technology and three-dimensional simulation software, a ship simulation platform is built, and the motion model are introduced in detail. The three-dimensional modeling of the vessels have been completed in the three-dimensional software 3DS MAX. In this paper, the work of motion simulation is accomplished by solving the motion equation of hull maneuvering, while visualization is realized by using VR toolbox. After ignoring the influence of ship oscillation on its hydrodynamic coefficients, and the vibration factor of propeller when establishing the power system model, the MMG equation has been established. In order to verify the correctness of the model, Simulink simulation is used to verify the model. For the reason of easy to use, low cost, powerful modeling function and good scalability and so on, XNA, a game development environment based on Direct X developed by Microsoft, has been chosen as the driver platform.