Friday June 16th a historical event took place at Statoil’s Head Office in Stavanger. The first ever certificate on Hardware In the Loop (HIL) testing was issued following the successful tests on the Dynamic Positioning (DP) system onboard the Diving And Construction Support ship Acergy Osprey.
Since 2003, DNV has in cooperation with the Norwegian company Marine Cybernetics been developing a new test and certification regime called Hardware In the Loop – HIL for short. The CyberSea HIL Simulator provided by Marine Cybernetics enables a wide range of detailed testing of control systems both at the factory, during commissioning, and in the sailing phase.
In response to an industry request, DNV has developed a Standard for Certification for Hardware In the Loop (HIL) testing, hence being able to offer a third-party certificate in line with other certificates from flag state authorities and classification societies.
The DNV rules for classification of ships give functional requirements to the specific target systems like dynamic positioning systems, propulsion control system and power management systems. HIL certification of a ship control system is based on general HIL requirements stated in the Standard for Certification for HIL testing, and functional requirements of the specific target HIL system (e.g. a dynamic positioning system) as stated in the Rules. This means that the HIL test certification becomes a natural add on to the existing classification and certification regime for control systems onboard ships.
The certification and testing related to the upgrade of the DP AUTRO system (corresponding to IMO equipment class III) onboard the Acergy Osprey, operated by Acergy, was performed in four steps:
- Approval of HIL test package
- Three days of testing at FAT (Factory Acceptance Test) on the target DP system at Kongsberg Maritime on Kongsberg
- Two days of tuning and testing at Dock Trials onboard the Acergy Osprey in Rotterdam
- 19 hours of testing at Sea Trials outside Cork
Following the document approval and tests all findings were listed and followed up. After implementation of necessary amendments to the DP system the comments were cleared out and the HIL test certificate was issued.
“The new HIL certification regime has proved to be a very useful instrument for carrying out deeper and broader testing on control systems. We have discovered bugs and possible bugs on the target system that are almost impossible to discover with the existing test methods within the normal class scope,” says Aleks Karlsen, responsible for DP systems in DNV.
Stian Ruud, DNV’s responsible for the HIL Joint Industry Project (JIP) adds: “Furthermore, we see that the HIL testing has started a discussion amongst the users and operators related to functionality, training and procedures. These experiences will form the basis for further development of class-related HIL products in the Safe Computer Controlled Ship project where DNV participates.”
Date: 2006-10-11