June 13, 2014, ESB 2001

Marine Cybernetics, also denoted as marine control system engineering, is the science about techniques and methods for analysis, monitoring and control of marine/maritime systems applied within offshore oil and gas, maritime transportation, fisheries and aquaculture, ocean science, offshore renewable energy and marine mining. Marine Cybernetics is on how marine/maritime dynamical systems can be automatically controlled in order to make them behave according to one or multi-control objectives in their environment of operation in the ocean space subject to ocean waves and current, wind loads and even ice for arctic operations. To be able to develop marine control systems it is necessary to gain a thorough understanding of the physical process and knowledge of modeling and analysis; design, synthesis and analysis of control algorithms; optimization; computer-based implementation; and finally testing and verification. In this presentation we will give a brief overview of the field, presenting research trends and challenges related to autonomous marine operations and systems. In addition, one example on application of hybrid control motivated by fundamental research done at UCSB for dynamic positioning of ships will be presented.

Professor Asgeir J. Sørensen obtained MSc degree in Marine Technology in 1988 at NTNU, and PhD degree in Engineering Cybernetics at NTNU in 1993. In 1989-1992 Sørensen was employed at MARINTEK as Research Scientist. In 1993 Sørensen was employed as Research Scientist at ABB Corporate Research Norway. In 1994 he became R&D Coordinator/Project Manager at ABB Industri. In 1996 he was appointed to Manager of Positioning Systems in ABB Industri. From 1998 to 2001 Sørensen was Technical Manager in the Business Area Automation Marine and Turbochargers, ABB Automation. In December 2002 Sørensen and 5 partners founded the company, Marine Cybernetics AS, where he was acting as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) until June 2010. In 2012 Sørensen became a co-founder of the NTNU spin-off company Ecotone AS. Since 1999 Sørensen has held the position of Professor of Marine Control Systems at the Department of Marine Technology, NTNU. He is currently acting as the Director of the Centre for Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems (AMOS) at the Departments of Marine Technology and Engineering Cybernetics, NTNU. Sørensen has authored more than 160 scientific articles and book chapters on ride control of SES, dynamic positioning of ships and semi-submersibles, guidance and control of underwater vehicles, control of marine structures, modelling and control of propulsion systems, power and energy management systems, and HIL testing and verification of control systems. Sørensen has graduated more than 80 MSc and 12 PhD candidates. He has also together with colleges established the Marine Cybernetics Laboratory (MC-Lab) and the Applied Underwater Robotics Laboratory (AUR-Lab), both at NTNU.