Maritime lecturers who educate and train ship operators need to
supervise, as well as to contribute to, development of the reasonable support system.
3. TRAINING CORRESPONDING TO MODERNIZED BRIDGE SYSTEM
3.1 Ability Corresponding to Modernized Bridge System
By introducing IBS as a support system for human operators, the
required navigation ability will change. The system carries out many parts of the tasks
which a watch officer is currently in charge, using visual information, information from
instruments and document. Knowing system's characteristics is required as an important
ability.
First of all, knowledge about the computer which carries out a main
function of the system is necessary. The processing characteristics of the computer must
be understood. We will discuss this matter in the following paragraph. The knowledge of
the computer system is discussed here. A computer system is composed of hardware and
software. Following items must be understood regarding the hardware of IBS; construction
of local-area-network connecting to signal source, construction and contents of peripheral
units and construction of actuators concerning controlling ship's motion. As software
manages the total system, management of each function must be understood.
And the knowledge concerning IBS operation must be required. Because of
the integrated input and output devices, the same key or the same CRT may change its
function depending on the purpose of use. As a functional menu is selected step by step,
its construction and contents must be understood in the relation with its design concept.
Further, knowledge of maintenance and management of data-base that is a source of the
system processing is required.
Next, processing characteristics of IBS must be understood. The higher
grade the system becomes, the more complicated contents and the greater contents the
system carries out. In this course, the human function becomes only a part of them. As a
full automatic control system can hardly be developed, it is necessary to understand the
processing way in order to evaluate results of the processing by an operator himself. If
the operator accepts the results of processing by IBS without correct evaluation, the
necessity of a human operator would be questioned.
Following items must be understood in order to know the processing done
by a machine system.
○ Characteristics of input data being used for processing
The information from each sensor has the specific characteristics
concerning errors. It is requested to know the procedure of data processing and the effect
of sensor errors which affects the processing results.
○ Data processing
Data processing changes its way depending on maneuvering objects.
Therefore, an operator has to know what kind of sensor data is selected, how to process
the data and by what evaluation method the result is obtained. An operator also has to
understand the control law at a ship handling mode in order to know how to realize the
ship motion by the system. If he can't estimate what the machine system is doing, he can't
use it correctly, because he can't understand the relation between cause and effect in the
objective motion and control.
