SHIPBOARD CONTROLS THE FUTURE

Recent advances in computer networking and control system technologies present an opportunity to improve the capability of naval shipboard c ontrol systems. Most existing digital machinery control systems merely replace one-for-one their analog predecessors. These recent advances motivate rethinking the basic role and architecture of shipboard contr ols. Traditional machinery system control has remained largely separat e from combat systems and other ship information systems. Existing mac hinery control systems have concentrated on four functions: machinery status, control, system stability and fault response. To implement the se functions, custom systems have been designed, built and debugged fo r each class of ship. This lack of commonality has been expensive in t erms of development costs, maintenance costs over the lifetime of the ship, and also the unrealized benefits stemming from prohibitive costs of adapting machinery controls to take advantage of emerging technolo gies. This paper proposes a new paradigm for developing a shipboard co ntrol system based upon a functional decomposition of ships' missions that leads to defining technology independent interface standards. Mul tiple vendors may be able to independently develop control system hard ware and software elements adhering to such interface standards withou t a priori knowledge of a particular ship application, leading to the ability to develop a total ship control system with low risk by integr ating proven hardware and software elements to meet specific ship desi gn requirements. With this new concept, other functions not normally a ssociated with machinery controls are feasible: spontaneous reconfigur ation after a damage event, integrated training, condition based maint enance planning, data archiving, operator assistance, and configuratio n management. This new approach may also allow for the integration of machinery controls into a total ship control system with seamless supp ort for combat systems. This new shipboard control paradigm promises t o speed control system development, improve performance, facilitate ma intenance and modernization, and lead to lower life cycle costs.