Expert System of Winch in Oceanographic Vessels for Scientific Purposes

Abstract

A wider knowledge of the oceans is necessary, therefore, Oceanography achieve a great future development. Within this research activity, oceanographic vessels are an important instrument. In its mission, they should be able to conduct investigations multipurpose, providing basic facilities for the development of disciplines such as Physical Oceanography, Chemical Oceanography, Biological Oceanography and Geological Oceanography. For the development of research campaigns, the ship should organize its configuration of equipment and services according to various scenarios: fishing, oceanographic, seismic, remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and acoustic. In all these vessels, the fixed or portable oceanographic winches are used to download, upload towing and instruments connected by cables, allowing to carry out research work at sea. In this work has been introduced a control system to manage a winch in vessels for a scientific purposes. The system has been designed like a cyber-physical system (CPS) with possibilities to interact with a systems multifunction by means distributed control system (DCS). It also a human-machine interface is disposed with a daily working and emergency program, accompanied by an information system supported by records and alarms to facilitate human decisions making if were necessary. Finally a SCADA is used to corroborate the functioning of the plant properly.