Reducing the effect of damage on operational effectiveness with DINCS technology

The combat systems of a naval ship are essential to the operational effectiveness of the maritime unit; less obviously, this is also true for several marine systems. The operation of the combat systems, the control of (battle) damage, and the ship's mobility all depend on functions provided by a subset of the marine systems: the electrical system, chilled water system, fire fighting systems, propulsion system, and steering system. And these functions are just as much essential to the maritime unit's operational effectiveness as the functions provided by the combat systems. Such essential marine systems are often designed and built with redundant system components in an effort to make them less vulnerable. For example, there are often several extra pipe sections and valves in a chilled water system; these extra components are used in case of damage (e.g., leaks). Up to now, utilising the available redundancy in the event of damage is the task of the human operators. It is a difficult task at best, given the chaotic situation caused by (particularly battle) damage, the complexity of the marine systems, the required speed of reaction, and also the trend to reduce crew sizes. It can be concluded that in order to reduce the effect of damage on the maritime unit's operational effectiveness, this task has to be automated. The main requirements of such automation are demanding: capable of autonomous operation in accordance with the priorities defined by the current Command Aim; capable of withstanding extensive damage; capable of eliminating the workload of the human operators; and capable of improving maintainability by reducing existing control system complexity while implementing the capabilities mentioned before. In March 2009, UK Defence Equipment and Support, NL Defence Materiel Organisation, Rolls-Royce Marine Electrical Systems and TNO started a project called Distributed Intelligent Networked Control Systems (DINCS) with the objective to create a prototype of a control system that meets these requirements. A paper on this collaborative project was presented at INEC 2010. The first phase of the project focuses on the application of DINCS technology to chilled water systems, and was successfully completed last year (2011). In this phase, a demonstration system was developed to demonstrate the benefits of DINCS technology. The demonstration system consists of a chilled water system test-rig and a control system prototype. The paper starts with an introduction to the project DINCS, which includes an explanation of the relevance of the project to the navy. Next, the method that was followed to produce the main project deliverables - the demonstration system and a cost-benefit analysis - is described. It is followed by a discussion of the results that were obtained with the demonstration system and the cost analysis; vulnerability and recoverability analysis; operator workload analysis; and system complexity analysis - the ingredients of the cost-benefit analysis. The paper ends with recommendations for the future of DINCS technology.