Experimental Results of Relative Speeds and Distances in STS Lightering by Application of GPS-based Systems

Y. Yoo, E. Pedersen, N. Kouguchi, Y. Arai

Abstract:	A lightering operation is a type of Ship-To-Ship (STS) operation where two ships are together in open seas and transfer the cargo. Operational safety and efficiency requires instrumental measurements for determining the relative speeds and distances with sufficient accuracies, and high skills and experiences are required by the human operators as no relevant equipment has been implemented. A field testing program with a training ship that simulated the approach towards a virtual vessel has been carried out as part of the ongoing research activity on ship-to-ship operations. The Velocity Information GPS (VI-GPS) system was applied to provide accurate longitudinal and lateral velocities and distances between the vessels. The accuracy of VI-GPS results have been compared with kinematic GPS results. The paper proposes to apply VI-GPS as input sensor to a decision-support and guidance system aiming to provide accurate velocity information to the officer in charge of an STS operation. The characteristics of an STS lightering operation and analysis of the measurement results are presented.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 22nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2009) September 22 - 25, 2009 Savannah International Convention Center Savannah, GA
Pages:	694 - 701
Cite this article:	Yoo, Y., Pedersen, E., Kouguchi, N., Arai, Y., "Experimental Results of Relative Speeds and Distances in STS Lightering by Application of GPS-based Systems," Proceedings of the 22nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2009), Savannah, GA, September 2009, pp. 694-701.
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