Session: 15-01-02 Seakeeping and Operability

Submission Number: 183624

A Digital Twin-Based Research and Development Environment Utilizing Real-Ship Data 

This paper presents a digital twin-based research and development (R&D) environment designed to democratize access to real-ship data. The R&D environment is fully realized by accessing the digital twin instance over the network, which provides real-time data streaming as well as on-demand access to design data. The digital twin instance provides traditional navigation data along with camera footage and measured ship motion data through a unified interface that mirrors human perception on the bridge. The R&D environment enables researchers to deploy and test programs directly onboard with live data flowing continuously from the physical vessel to the digital twin instance. By leveraging Starlink connectivity, the programs onboard can access and utilize cloud-based resources such as large language models (LLMs) in real time, even while at sea. The purpose of the R&D environment is to enable the simultaneous utilization of abundant live data collected onboard and diverse computational resources available in the cloud. The digital twin instance is primarily located onboard, where it performs real-time data collection and streaming to the local network. The digital twin instance allows the same R&D environment to be easily reproduced anywhere by replaying the stored data files. It is expected that this approach will not only accelerate the validation and development of maritime technologies but also promote collaboration among researchers, engineers, and data scientists through a shared and reproducible R&D environment.

Presenting Author: Jung-Hyun Kim Ship Partners Ltd.

Presenting Author Biography: Jung-Hyun Kim is a Tech Lead at Ship Partners Ltd. in Tokyo, Japan.
He received his M.S. degree in Naval Architecture from Osaka University in 2010 and his Ph.D. degree in Naval Architecture from Seoul National University in 2016.
His research topics include ship responses to waves and digital twin technology.

Authors:

Jung-Hyun Kim Ship Partners Ltd.
Hikaru Utsumi Ship Partners Ltd.
Marcos Garcia Helikon Shipping Enterprises Limited