Closing the loop on marine propulsion design

Researchers develop tools for rapid prototyping and analysis of distributed safety-critical systems.

There is a plethora of low-cost, commercial-off-the-shelf hardware available for implementing control systems. These range from devices with fairly low intelligence such as smart sensors and actuators, to dedicated controllers such as PowerPC, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and PC-based boards, to dedicated systems-on-a-chip application-specific integrated circuits and field-programmable gate arrays. When considering the construction of complex distributed systems for ships, the ability to rapidly integrate a variety of different devices is essential.

However, manufacturers prefer to supply proprietary tools for programming their products. As a consequence of this lack of “openness,” rapid prototyping and development of distributed systems is extremely difficult and costly for a systems integrator.