Virtual Prototyping for Maritime Winch Design and Operations based on Functional Mock-up Interface Co-simulation

Abstract

Modern winch systems have become increasingly complex with hybrid power systems, intelligent control systems, and lightweight synthetic cables with complicated traction and handling mechanisms. During the early design phase, it is hard to manage a large set of parameters for system design exploration and optimisation by traditional trial-and-error approaches. Virtual prototyping provides the users with numerous risk-free possibilities to evaluate the design trade-offs and immediately know the results of any modification. This requires flexible, effective modelling of the dynamic system and efficient handling of the simulation. This paper presents the implementation of a virtual winch prototyping tool for maritime winch design and operations. Model development and setups for co-simulation are described based on an active heave compensated winch with secondary control. Simulation management and user interface are implemented based on web technology and connected to the functional mock-up units as clients through the WebSocket protocol.