WP 5100 [DST]

Two aspects must be taken into account when designing the steering station: On the one hand, the steering station should be designed as ergonomically as possible, and on the other hand, it must be familiar enough to trained skippers to allow relearning and safe operation after an appropriate training period. The operating concept must be as intuitive as possible. The spatial arrangement of the display and operating elements, the presentation of the information and the control/operating concept, is therefore carried out in coordination with the shipping companies, which participate as associated partners, and with the regulatory bodies.

The skipper should be relieved at the helm by not being overloaded with unnecessary information, i.e. the presentation of information should be appropriate to the situation.

Information that is constantly changing is always displayed. Information that is only used for monitoring purposes fades into the background or is hidden during regular operation. The skipper always has the possibility to display any desired information. It is also conceivable to predefine different display configurations that the skipper can call up. An important point are the warning systems and the implementation of emergency procedures. Here, various acoustic, optical and haptic techniques for the warning elements are to be tested.

The control of a conventional ship is done from the bridge. Analogously, the display for the skipper in the helm station is also implemented from the environmental display (“view from the window”) as well as the display of the bridge. The respective arrangement of the display elements is accordingly similar to that of a conventional ship. However, since the functional scope of the control station goes beyond the operation of a single ship, additional representations, for example by switchable displays, are to be provided. For the same reason, additional haptic control elements (buttons, levers, etc.) should be provided to enable additionally required functions, such as camera control. The remotely operating skipper initially receives only visual information about the triggering of functions. The feedback of operating elements, i.e. triggered functions (e.g. activation of the rate-of-turn controller) and parameter changes (e.g. propeller speed) should accordingly also be conveyed to the remote skipper acoustically and/or haptically if required.

After the conceptual design of the functionally necessary operating and display elements has been completed, these are divided into virtualizable and non-virtualizable elements. The virtualizable elements are then only represented graphically. These are likely to include visual displays such as radar, chart and AIS in particular. In addition, however, virtual

virtual control panels are also conceivable, for example as touchscreens or with the aid of gesture control.

Following the definition and categorization of the display and control elements, additional functions are conceptualized with the help of Mixed Reality (MR), i.e. Augmented Reality (AR) or Augmented Virtuality (AV). Examples in this case can be highlights (partial colorization of camera images) or additional information (text overlays on ships).