Marine Vessel Safe-State Control for Malfunction Response
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Solution Overview
Problem
Marine vessels face increased complexity and fragility due to advanced technical equipment, making malfunctions difficult to detect and correct, especially in autonomous systems, and cyber-attacks pose a severe threat to safety.
Innovation Solution
A marine vessel safety system comprising a vessel monitoring system, malfunction evaluation system, and safe-state control system to ensure the vessel enters a safe state by monitoring parameters, detecting malfunctions, and executing control commands to stabilize the vessel.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If advanced technical equipment is added to marine vessels to increase functionality and automation, then productivity and operational capability are improved, but device complexity increases and reliability deteriorates due to increased fragility and difficulty in detecting and correcting malfunctions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a safe-state control system that pre-defines safe operational states and automatically transitions the vessel to these predefined safe states when malfunctions are detected. This preliminary preparation of safe states and automatic transition mechanisms resolves the contradiction by ensuring reliability is maintained through pre-planned responses to failures, without requiring complex real-time decision-making that would increase system fragility
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a dedicated safe-state control system as an intermediary layer between the complex vessel operation systems and the actual vessel control. This intermediary monitors system health and intervenes only when necessary to transition to safe states, thereby maintaining high productivity through normal operations while ensuring reliability through controlled intervention when malfunctions occur
2Ease of operation
If the extent of automation is increased in marine vessels, then ease of operation is improved and specialized personnel are reduced, but difficulty in detecting malfunctions increases and cyber-safety threats are amplified
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a monitoring system that continuously feeds back system parameter information to the safe-state control system. This feedback mechanism enables automatic detection of malfunctions by comparing actual system states against expected parameters, resolving the contradiction by providing automated malfunction detection without requiring specialized personnel while maintaining high automation levels
Solution Approach 2:
The safe-state control system performs self-monitoring and self-correction by automatically detecting malfunctions through parameter monitoring and autonomously transitioning to predefined safe states. This self-service capability resolves the contradiction by enabling automated vessels to detect and respond to malfunctions without human intervention, maintaining ease of operation while improving malfunction detection capability
3Productivity
If multiple vessel operation systems are integrated to optimize vessel functionality, then productivity is improved, but device complexity increases making the system more fragile and harder to maintain
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the safety-critical functions from the complex vessel operation systems and places them in a dedicated safe-state control system. This separation allows the main vessel systems to maintain high functionality and productivity while the extracted safety system provides simplified, focused monitoring and control, thereby reducing overall system fragility without compromising functionality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the vessel control architecture into distinct functional modules: monitoring systems for parameter detection, malfunction evaluation systems for anomaly identification, and safe-state control systems for response execution. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by allowing each module to be independently optimized for its specific function, maintaining high overall functionality while reducing interdependencies that cause fragility in integrated systems
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to marine vessel safety system which ensures that a marine vessel enters a safe state in the event of at least one malfunction in any vessel operation systems and components of the marine vessel. The marine vessel safety system comprises at least one vessel monitoring system, at least one malfunction evaluation system and a safe-state control system.