Philip Thompson

Since joining BMT in 1992, Phil has held various senior executive appointments within BMT’s global maritime consultancy businesses and now leads BMT's Simulation & Training Product division. Previously, Phil was a professor at the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech, USA. He holds a PhD in numerical analysis. Phil has, over many years, led developments in advanced monitoring and simulation, maritime digital forensics, artificial intelligence and autonomous navigation. A large number of these tools have been adopted by commercial and statutory maritime stakeholders worldwide.

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Presentation

Autonomous navigation using next-generation (IHO S100) marine data fusion

In winning the inaugural UK Hydrographic Office International Marine Challenge, BMT created an innovative autonomous navigation simulation system and demonstrated its use synthetically for a 150m autonomous passenger ferry navigating in Plymouth, UK. The new system combines BMT’s field-proven Rembrandt and Tuflow 3D navigation and hydraulic simulation technologies with ultra-high-granularity (spatial and temporal) data feeds in line with the next-generation IHO S-100 data standards for bathymetry, tidal stream, tidal height and current, and other environmental data such as AIS and ship routing data. This paper describes the approach taken and demonstrates the specific applications for large ships.