This paper presents a development framework for dynamic positioning control systems for marine vessels in managed ice. Due to the complexity of the vessel-ice and ice-ice interactions a configurable high fidelity numerical model simulating the vessel, the ice floes, the water, and the boundaries is applied. The numerical model is validated using experimental data and coupled with a control application incorporating sensor models, control systems, actuator models, and other external dynamics to form a closed loop development platform. The ice drift reversal is simulated by moving the positioning reference frame in an elliptic trajectory, rather than moving each individual ice floe. A control plant model is argued, and a control system for managed ice is proposed based on conventional open water design methods. A case study shows that dynamic positioning in managed ice is feasible for some moderate ice conditions.

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This paper proposes an algorithm that uses conventional measurements found on-board ships coupled with additional inertial measurement units to estimate the motions and global loads acting on them. The work is motivated by the scarce availability of full-scale load data for sea-ice operations and by the invasive instrumentation of strain gauges used to obtain global loads of all degrees of freedom. Full-scale data are key to a number of design, operational, and research aspects related to sea-ice operations. The proposed algorithm is based on four Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) that together with position and heading measurements are used to make estimates of dynamic linear and rotational acceleration (acceleration resulting in motion). We show how to use models updated with propulsion and wind measurements to estimate propulsion, hydrodynamic, wind, and ice loads through a setup catering to real-time implementation. A case study with the Swedish icebreaker Oden is presented and discussed. The algorithm effectively yields reasonable ice load history estimations and presents great potential in its further application to real-time global ice load estimations.

Acceleration signals have a powerful disturbance rejection potential in rigid body motion control, as they carry a measure proportional to the resulting force. Yet, they are seldom used, since measuring, decoupling, and utilizing the dynamic acceleration in the control design is not trivial. This paper discusses these topics and presents a solution for marine vessels building on conventional methods together with a novel control law design, where the dynamic acceleration signals are used to form a dynamic referenceless disturbance feedforward compensation. This replaces conventional integral action and enables unmeasured external loads and unmodel dynamics to be counteracted with low time lag. A case study shows the feasibility of the proposed design using experimental data and closed-loop high fidelity simulations of dynamic positioning in a harsh cold climate environment with sea-ice. INDEX TERMSMarine technology, Closed loop systems, Ice.

This paper presents a novel automatic real-time remote sensing algorithm that uses radar images and global positioning satellite system measurements to estimate the ice-drift velocity vector in a region around a free-floating and potentially moving vessel. It is motivated by the low image frequency of satellite systems together with the inconvenience of deploying and retrieving ice trackers (beacons) on the ice. The algorithm combines radar image processing with two Kalman filters to produce the estimated local drift vector decoupled from the ship motion. The proposed design is verified using a full-scale data set from an ice management operation north of Svalbard in 2015. It is found that the performance of the algorithm is comparable with that of trackers on the ice.