Trainer Station for Navigation Simulation System

Abstract

Modern maritime education, ship navigation simulators are utilized to train students on different scenarios. This ship simulator consists of trainee station of where students practice ship maneuvering Instructor stations where instructor monitor and evaluate student activities. University of Colombo School of Computing with Sri Lanka Navy collaboration is in the process of developing a ship navigation simulator. Trainee station of the above is already been develop. However, Instructor Station have not been develop to evaluate students. The system presented in dissertation has been develop as the Instructor Station of the above mention simulator. Using this system Instructors can train ship navigations in virtual environment and evaluate the students. Instructors can build up the lesson plan using the tools available in the Instructor station’s system. This dissertation describes the basic functions available in the Instructor station system and the design details of the system. In the Instructor Station systems, JFreeChart Open Source Java library was use to build up Meter panel on screen. Those meter needles indicate the values of each parameter. Instructors can easily identify the value and ask significant questions from students. Ogre3D C++ library was used to create three dimensional ocean environments. This have been real time rendering by is achieved by which is DirectX plug-in available in the Windows operating system. Rest of the other tools have been developed using the resources available in Java Language. The current Instructor Station has been tested with Trainee station. By navel experts of Sri Lanka Navy can use this both these systems and improve the quality of their naval academy trainings programmes.