TOpti: a flexible framework for optimising energy management for various ship machinery topologies

In the early stages of the ship design process, the system designer must choose which type of machinery system will be used to power the ship. Hybrid power systems, which are familiar in the automotive industry, have started making a breakthrough in the marine industry. However, defining the length of the financial payback period is not trivial for ship designers, which makes it harder to adopt these more expensive technologies. The shortage of on-board machinery integration software for maritime engineers has motivated the authors of this article to develop a tool that can assist ship designers in making the right choices early in the design process. Discovering the optimal power system design for a specified vessel’s operation requires optimal machinery control. This article presents a novel method to optimise the machinery control of a system specified by the tool user. A case study is presented using a fishing boat with both diesel-mechanical and hybrid electric power systems.