The issue of operation of river vessels and river-sea-going vessels for navigation is considered. At the same time, it is emphasized that the safety of navigation, an integral part of which is the navigational safety of ships navigation, is ensured mainly due to the eye method for determining the position and movement of the vessel relative to the boundaries and directions of the fairway. This method is called pilotage. Attention to the fact that for sailing in constrained water specific for the Russian inland waterways, the degree of external factors influence on moving vessel increases is drawn. It is also noted that navigation along the Russian inland waterways is complicated by the presence of variable and heterogeneous currents, navigational hazards and shallow water. To increase the level of navigation safety in such conditions, the navigators may be required to use additional technical means of navigation and radio navigation devices. Thus, it is concluded that under significant external influences during navigation of vessels along the Russian inland waterways, the skills and abilities of navigators, including the use of modern navigational bridge equipment, play an important role in ensuring navigational safety. This problem is most acutely manifested in the piloting of modern river-sea-going vessels due to their size, as well as specific operational characteristics in comparison with typical river vessels. The aim of the work is to determine the capabilities of the navigator to ensure a high level of navigational safety of modern river-sea-going vessels when making voyages through the inner waterways of Russia, taking into account the negative impact of these factors and conditions, including hydrometeorological conditions, based on the use of promising 3D electronic navigation charts.

The issue of increasing the navigation intensity when navigating in narrow areas, in limited water areas, as well as in the areas of ship traffic control systems operation, including in storm conditions, requires masters and the operator of the ship traffic control system to make decisions quickly and correctly to assess the collision situation and choose the option of maneuvering ships to prevent accidents. The solution of these tasks can be achieved by supplementing the information of radar stations, as well as the means of automatic radar laying with information on the maneuvering of ships, as well as information on the dangers of storm navigation when the ship course and speed change. An addition to the information of radar stations and automatic radar laying facilities is proposed. The addition makes it possible to effectively solve the tasks of assessing the risk of collision and safe maneuvering of ships without additional time spent on “playing” the maneuver in various navigation conditions, including a storm. It is noted that in accordance with the provisions of this article the parameters of the vessel movement zones can be set for 1 min of maneuvering with a rudder shift angle of 15 degrees. Such a maneuver may occur as a result of a breakdown of the steering device or erroneous maneuvering and should be taken into account when assessing the possibility of safe movement of the vessel. These data in the form of additional information from the means of automatic radar laying and radar stations allow you to quickly and accurately monitor the safety of ship traffic and assess the risk of collision. Attention is drawn to the fact that sailing in stormy conditions is accompanied by such a dangerous phenomenon as resonance for various types of pitching, which can lead to dangerous phenomena, such as loss of stability and capsizing of the vessel. Additional information for the means of automatic radar laying and radar stations according to the resonance conditions can help the skipper to avoid these dangerous phenomena by changing the course of the vessel. This information can be used both on existing means of automatic radar laying and radar stations, and on promising navigation devices, including for the vessels operated without human intervention. The methods proposed in this paper, based on the use of additional information about the maneuverability characteristics and movement of the vessel to solve the problems of ensuring the safety of movement in narrow spaces and the problems of vessels divergence in various navigation conditions, including a storm, can be used on existing navigation devices and at the creation of new navigation equipment installed on ships with and without a crew on board.

Collision avoidance is vital for safety of navigation at sea. At first scientists aimed at developing navigational assistance systems for supporting human operators in collision prevention and enhancing situational awareness. Nowadays the development of unmanned systems has gained appreciable amount of attention. The main purpose of modern researches is to solve collision avoidance problems. An overview of collision avoidance methods proposed by Russian and foreign researchers is offered iт the paper. The authors offer different techniques for solving the collision avoidance problem, namely, Artificial Potential Fields, Ant Colony Optimisation, Velocity Obstacles and Velocity Resolution Method, Interval Programming, Fuzzy Logic, Neural Networks with different optimisation methods, Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance, combined algorithms. However, some of the articles do not take into account using ship motion models, complying with the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea and collision avoidance with static objects. Some approaches consider only two-vessels collision avoidance, not all of them are capable of using engine maneuvers. Currents, tides, winds and seas are not considered in any method described in this paper. Many researches have simulation results carried out in computer-based systems, but only a few have results of natural trials. The reviewed researches are divided into three groups: approaches considering avoidance of static and dynamic objects, approaches considering collision avoidance in two-ship encounter situations and approaches considering multi-ship encounter situations. It is noted that the purpose of further researches will be developing the existing approaches, elimination of their deficiencies and supplementing them in order to solve the whole complex of existing problems.

The issue of providing high-efficiency traffic of freight by searching for profitable freight traffic on the basis of widespread introduction of digital and computer technologies in hardware and software technologies is considered. It is emphasized that the ability to manage high-tech traffic is provided on the platform of broad digitization of mathematical models of transport networks using intelligent systems and integrated complexes. It is shown that the main problem in automating the search for routes of profitable freight in transport networks is the development of mathematical models, adequate to real processes and economic conditions in the market, using methods of numerical optimization. These models should be flexible in reconfiguring to changing system conditions and tasks, as well as low time and resources to adapt to these conditions. In order to increase the efficiency of freight traffic in the transport network, one of the ways to find cost-effective routes in the logistics network based on the use of integer linear programming using MATLAB tools that provide maximum targeted functionality of dual transport task is explored in the paper. To this end, a computational algorithm and optimization procedure have been proposed; they allow you to fully automate the process of solving a dual transport problem and to obtain optimal assessments of variables, satisfying the condition of the balance of direct and dual transport tasks, according to which the values of their target functions are equal. This avoids manual iterative procedures for approaching the initial support plan to the optimal plan envisaged by the traditional heuristic methods. The concrete example has shown that with the help of integer programming tools in the MATLAB environment, it is possible to automate the search for cost-effective shipping routes at a qualitatively new level, for which the incremental value of the unit of transported products will be maximum.

It has been assumed about the hypothetical possibility of independent control of the ship isolinear movement in the presence of special equipment on board that can constantly determine the values of the parameters of the navigation isoline, taking into account the changing of geometric characteristics. It is possible that the sequence of approximated navigation data can be an argument for calculating continuous values of the true course with synchronous transmission of commands to the steering wheel to ensure adaptive self-regulating movement of the vessel. The need to use the approximation of navigation functions is justified by the expert ability for the fast calculation the functionals of analytical inflections of spline isolines, interpreted in mathematics as characteristic points of changing the signs of derivatives, but corresponding in practical application to the signals of automatic command submission to ship controls in the form of a rudder and a telegraph. The technology of using spline functions for navigation through geophysical fields is considered on the specific example of reconstructing the chart of the anomalous gravity field in Peter the Great Bay from the data of trajectory measurements of an autonomous uninhabited underwater vehicle. Computer simulation of gravimetric procedures based on a hybrid algorithm of two-dimensional B-spline approximation as a reference geophysical field for matching with the data of measurement studies is performed. As a proof of the efficiency of the proposed approach, a three-dimensional synthesis of a fragment of the field of gravity anomalies in the Japanese Sea region is implemented. It is noted that computer visualization of the 3D format of the programmed ship movement provides the possibility of intellectual assistance to the navigator in the strategy of instantaneous determination of the ship position under any circumstances of navigation. The approved spline algorithms can serve as harmonized support for the sefarer’s staff when making a competent decision on the management of the vessel in any emergency situation. The theoretical possibility of practical application of the theory of spline functions to the approximation of the newest isolines, the introduction of which in the navigation of the future is associated with the innovations of technical means of navigation, is predicted. It is assumed that isolinear passages through geophysical fields can be effectively used in the unpredictable conditions of modern shipping, under various force majeure circumstances and natural disasters, and become a real autonomous alternative to the satellite navigation.

The evaluation of the marine terminals activity is carried out at various stages of the project implementation: from the stage of pre-design work, development of project documentation and throughout the entire life of the facilities. Any sea terminal is a complex technical system consisting of buildings, structures, technological equipment and engineering networks. Each of the objects, systems and subsystems of the terminal has its own performance criteria. However, for an integral evaluation of the terminal performance, it makes sense to perform analysis to a certain degree of detail, cutting off unnecessary and uninformative indicators. A brief literary review of the world and domestic practice of using benchmarking in the activity of a seaport infrastructure is provided in the paper, the regulatory requirements for the technical and economic indicators of capital construction facilities at the design documentation development stage are specified. The author has proposed the gradation of performance indicators: technical, financial, economic, environmental and social. As an example, the differentiation by the turnover rates of tank reservoir parks for oil terminals of the Russian Federation is showed in the paper, the design values of throughput and the actual cargo turnover of oil terminals of the Russian Federation are compared. A comparison of indicators for some coal terminals - values of the performance of berth line front, performance of the berth and performance of storage areas is also made. The set of performance indicators may differ from each other, depending on the specifics of the handled cargoes, their geographic location, cargo turnover, and the historical development of sea terminals.

The issue of constructing a theoretical model for optimizing the routes of liner container ships taking into account the distribution of goods between the hinterlands of ports is considered in the paper. The description of the experimental part of the model for container lines taking into account land transportation in the hinterlands of ports is given. It is indicated that in order to support and substantiate decisions taken at the stage of planning routes for the movement of ships of the shipping line, it is necessary to use optimization tools. It is emphasized that the task of optimizing the routes of a linear shipping company is reduced to the need to find such a sequence of bypassing seaports by a ship from a given set, at which the extreme value of the optimality criterion will be achieved. In this form, the optimization problem can be simplified to the classical traveling salesman problem. It is noted that the sources of origin and extinction of cargo flows are located in the hinterlands of ports. It is indicated that the choice of the criterion for optimizing the route of the vessel affects the nature of the problem being solved. The criterion of the optimality of the problem being solved within the framework of the model can be set the freight turnover or the time of the voyage. A theoretical description of the model, formula and scheme on which the model is based, is provided in the paper. A new approach to the problem of liner ships routing on the basis of a liner route optimization model when distributing cargo between port hinterlands is considered. It is indicated that the new method is created by combining the method of genetic chimeras and the method of ordered crossover. The method has a number of advantages over current methods, since in the process of optimizing the routes of a liner shipping company, the distribution of goods between the hinterlands of ports is taken into account.

The problem of evaluation of container ships and equipment fleet required for the successful container line activity on a certain route is considered in the paper. The analysis allows us to reveal specific features of this traditional task in the case of new transportation technology based on containerization. The basic mathematical formulas, which connect the number of ships and containers necessary to serve given cargo flow of container shipping line with its characteristics, are considered. The suggested method of this problem is illustrated with an example of simple container shipping route, connecting two ports, but the results stay true for more complicated cases (for example, for the round trip, connecting several ports). Particularly, the suggested method can be used as an instrument for comparative analysis of different variants of shipping line organization. The suggested method can be expanded in order to analyze the complex hierarchical configurations of shipping lines, which include several feeder and trunk routes. The verification of methods adequacy is done with utilization of specific simulation model. The results of simulation are represented in the paper. The described argumentation is valid for the regular and deterministic cargo flow. At the same time, container transportation can be characterized with significant variation of container party volumes. These variations can dramatically affect the necessary number of container equipment. In order to include these fluctuations, the method can be expanded with simulation modeling, which allows us to evaluate probability distribution of necessary number of ships and containers.

The results of the study of the dynamic forces that arise in the shafting when the main engine is brought into the nominal operating mode are presented in the work. The design scheme of the shafting is an elastic homogeneous rod with a distributed moment of inertia. The left end of the shaft rotates according to a given law of motion, on the right end there is a screw in the form of an inert disk, on which a moment of resistance acts proportional to the square of the angular velocity. The mathematical model of the stress-strain state of the shaft is represented by a nonlinear differential equation of the second order in partial derivatives. For the practical calculation of the mathematical model, assumptions that make it possible to simplify the mathematical model are introduced. The solution of a simplified mathematical model is obtained by the Fourier method for eigenfunctions orthogonal to weight. The law of motion of the left end of the shaft, simulating the acceleration of the main engine, is taken as an exponential function. For an example of the calculation, the energy-mechanical characteristics of a large freezing fishing trawler MECHANIC KOVTUN are taken. The results of the study have showed that the dynamic forces can be many times higher than the nominal value if the main engine is accelerated during several periods of the main form of natural vibrations of the shafting. The dynamic effect is small at a slow acceleration of the main engine, reaching the rated speed for more than twenty periods of the main mode of oscillation. The proposed mathematical model can also be used to study the stress-strain state of the shafting under various dynamic loads, such as: the propeller leaves the water, it gets into an inhomogeneous incoming flow of water, the propeller hits ice, resonant vibrations during pulsating engine operation, etc.

Currently, the international maritime conventions set more and more stringent requirements for the environmental safety and energy efficiency of ships and their power plants. The cooling system is one of the most important elements of a ship’s power plant. Widespread open-loop dual-circuit cooling systems consume seawater. As a result, plankton and fish fry are destroyed, which leads to a reduction in the fish resources of the seas. An alternative can be closed-loop cooling systems, which completely exclude the intake of outside cooling water and negative environmental impact. Moreover, such systems can have different construction schemes. There is a need for a reasonable choice of one or another system option, taking into account a combination of factors, including environmental. Three options for cooling systems are considered: open-loop two-circuit cooling system; and closed one- and two-circuit cooling systems. In this case, two sub-options for open-loop systems are considered. The first sub-option is the lack of regulation of seawater consumption depending on temperature; the second one is the presence of such regulation by means of bypass (temperature control) or frequency-controlled seawater pump drive. An integral indicator, which includes the cost of the system, the costs of its own energy needs, environmental damage and useful result - the heat transferred by the system, is proposed. It is shown that the open-loop two-circuit cooling system with unregulated seawater consumption, which is characterized the largest number of pumps and consumption of outboard water possesses the worst integral indicator. The closed single-circuit system possesses the best value of the integral indicator, since it excludes the intake of seawater and has the least number of pumps. At the same time, when the vessel is in the sea areas with very low biological productivity, these systems are comparable in terms of efficiency. Regulation of seawater intake by the open system can significantly increase efficiency, which indicates the advisability of using bypass or frequency-controlled pump drive. Moreover, the latter is more preferable in terms of the energy efficiency of the system.

Based on the objectives of the “Strategy for the development of the shipbuilding industry of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2035”, an example of finding ways to improve reliability, operation of ships and vessels, through technical solutions for the introduction of individual elements of ship equipment is provided in the paper. An additional resource is the optimization of the ship’s power plant, namely, a way to improve the quality of fuel by means of hydrodynamic treatment in mixers-homogenizers of the jet-cavitation type based on the analysis of physical and chemical properties and quality indicators. An analysis of the design of a hydrodynamic homogenizer and its scheme, which allows combining the advantages of ejector and nozzle mixers is provided in the paper. On the example of using a homogenizer, the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the optimized fuel combustion process are presented. The process of cavitation flow of a liquid is considered in detail, when the impact on the liquid at the molecular level in collapsing cavitation bubbles changes the density of the injected flow. The issues of including an additional source of energy or substance (water) in the standard system and the consequences of this process are also touched upon in the paper. The operation of the mixer, achieved by dividing the liquid flow into working and injected flows, is described in detail. A general view of the mixer-homogenizer of the injection circuit and the basic arrangement of the jet-cavitation mixer of the injection circuit are illustratively presented. The empirical formula for the selection of the console plate of the homogenizer vibrator is considered in the paper. By modernizing this element, it is possible to significantly affect the management of the quality of fuel combustion, energy saving and energy-ecological safety during the operation of the propulsion complex.

The subject of this work is to study the issue of ensuring regular navigation along the Northern Sea Route, which is much shorter compared to traditional routes passing through the South Seas and the Indian Ocean, as well as the possibility of its transformation into a national transport main waterway of the Russian Federation with a further increase in the economic contribution to the Russian economy of the Arctic zone, which is a strategic territory and it is important for ensuring the implementation of Russian national interests in the Arctic. At the same time, the necessity of using screw-steering columns with electric propulsion, which perform the functions of a steering device mover, for working on ships in harsh climatic conditions, is justified. Their main advantages are noted, namely: high maneuverability with maximum torque and thrust in any direction; reliable design without mechanical restrictions, which can withstand high sharply variable shock loads; high operational characteristics when working in ice and clean water. The problem of step-by-step regulation of power output to a screw-steering column with a main ship power plant, solved using hierarchical routing networks, is considered. It is noted that the size of the route tables supported by the switching equipment increases as a direct dependence of the increase in the size of the network, when the processor time for processing it increases, and the size of the packets exchanged by the communication equipment increases, which increases the load on the network. A general model of the network hierarchy for power monitoring and output, which is based on routers, modules, actuators, interface devices, etc., is proposed. The variants of power output from the main ship’s power plant to the screw-steering column are analyzed.

A robust direct flux and torque control (DFTC) technique of a doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) for wind turbine applications (WTA) is presented in the paper. The main advantages of traditional DFTC control method are its simple structure, robust technique and good dynamic response compared to the field-oriented control (FOC). The use of a classical hysteresis comparator and a predefined lookup table will inevitably lead to select a non-optimal rotor voltage vector in terms of reducing rotor flux errors, harmonic distortion (THD) current, and electro-magnetic torque undulations. In this research work, a new approach of DFTC technique of DFIG based modified super-twisting algorithms (MSTA) and modified space vector modulation (MSVM) is developed by replacing the traditional lookup table and two hysteresis comparators. Theoretical principles of this method are presented along with simulation results. Analysis of DFTC-MSVM control scheme based MSTA controllers have been done in MATLAB/ Simulink environment. The machine (DFIG 1,5MW) is tested in association with a wind turbine. Simulation results are presented. The proposed DFTC control technique takes full advantage and the electromagnetic torque regulation objective of DFIG is confirmed by the numerical simulation results compared to the traditional DFTC control technique.