Do-It Radar 'Ride Control and short notice Quiet Periods' prediction

Background
For crew transfer vessels the sustained speed during transits has to be reduced significantly if the sea is too high. Also, transfer of an engineer to a wind turbine is a quite sensitive operation limited by ‘sea state’. Yet, in a too high sea state there are relatively long periods with lower waves. Visually or statistically these can’t be predicted, so the operation has to wait: “weather down time”.

Objective
To save millions in the cost of Wind Park maintenance and gain production. A specific radar system will be combined with data assimilation software to predict the waves coming to the ship. At fast speed, this is possible up to 10-15 sec ahead. Extreme waves are detected and ‘ride control’ (RC) actions can be applied on fast CTV’s (crew transfer vessels), reducing motion fatigue and seasickness. Also, when lying at the wind turbine, “quiet periods” (QP) in an otherwise too high sea state can be predicted up to ~1 min. ahead, sufficient for operations like crew transfer to a platform to succeed. The system will significantly enhance workability of maintenance/repair operations and avoid electricity production loss.

Short description of activities
The Do-It Radar system consists of wave prediction method, using a staring FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) radar measuring wave velocity through Doppler shift. The method is combined with a ship motion tool to get a motion prediction. The system proto-type will be validated and be at TRL-7 by mid-2018. The tasks are:
- Preparing the radar proto-type by Radac.
- Preparing the prediction method in a professional industrial software system. (Radac, MARIN)
- Integration with ship motion code (MARIN).
- Integration of proto-type systems and Factory/Site Acceptance Testing (NextOcean, Radac and MARIN)
- Validation testing of respective systems on typical crew transfer vessel.
- Completion of validated proto-types and making available for demonstration.

Results
It will enhance efficiency during the maintenance phase, in operation of crew transfer vessels. It also saves on downtime of non-functioning wind turbines, since repair teams are able to respond in weather in which they normally couldn’t go. The system will be on the market by mid 2018 for an economically attractive price of about 60k€. SDE+ cost saving is about 2.95 € per MWh.