From data to insight for a polar supply and research vessel

ABSTRACT Full-scale measurements on polar research vessels present an opportunity to advance the state-of-the-art in ship design through high-quality long-term measurements of environmental conditions and ship responses. The approaches, data analytics and synoptic results are presented for a comprehensive measurement campaign on a modern polar supply and research vessel, the SA Agulhas II. It is recognised that the real-time analysis and utilisation of such measurements could benefit the insightful operation and management of this vessel. To this end, the conceptual design of a monitoring and decision-aiding system is presented. Results indicate that significant potential beckons in the integrated acquisition, analysis and utilisation of full-scale ship-board measurements provided that this diverse data can be aggregated, analysed, visualised and interpreted in real time.