The ship simulator of the Flensburg University of Applied Sciences consists of an imitation of a ship’s bridge with corresponding control panels and screens for monitoring ship parameters and displaying cartographic material. A video projected on a curved screen surrounding the bridge gives the “ship’s crew” the feeling that they are sailing on the English Channel or any other chosen route. Different weather conditions can be selected for this projection, and although the bridge itself does not move, the video of waves hitting the ship from the sides makes the passengers sway in the desire to compensate for real waves.

All in all, it is an impressive environment for conducting component tests of the Decision Support System (DSS) being developed as part of the MariData project. The goal of the DSS is to help ship crews find routes that minimize fuel consumption while taking into account weather conditions. 52°North contributes to the project in several ways, including setting up a cloud platform for pre-processing environmental data, implementing weather routing algorithms, and supporting front-end development. Last week, Johannes Schnell and Katharina Demmich traveled to Flensburg to contribute to the DSS simulator tests and deepen their knowledge of the decision-making processes on board. With this knowledge, we are well prepared for the last year of the project and for a second simulator test in the fall of 2023, which will test the complete process chain of the DSS.