On March 2nd, the tugboat intelligent navigation system developed by China Energy Huanghua Port Company passed operational testing, successfully achieving underwater obstacle avoidance. This system marks the first application of underwater sonar scanning technology and other techniques in the navigation process of tugboats, enabling comprehensive three-dimensional fusion detection of obstacles and significantly enhancing the safety operation capability of tugboats.
Huanghua Port is the largest coal port in the country, and tugboats in the coal port area undertake functions such as assisting ships in berthing and departing, ferrying pilots, winter escort and icebreaking, maritime search and rescue, emergency response, and maritime firefighting and pollution control. Traditional tugboat navigation relies mainly on navigation radar, depth sounders, navigation aids, and personnel lookout to safeguard operations, only identifying relatively large objects above the water surface, such as ships, and large shallow areas directly beneath the tugboat, unable to effectively identify nearby water surface objects and underwater obstacles or cope with adverse weather conditions such as thick fog.
This intelligent navigation system mainly consists of equipment such as laser radar, millimeter-wave radar, infrared cameras, forward and downward scanning sonar, etc. Through system modeling and big data analysis, it achieves dynamic real-time monitoring of the tugboat's surroundings in all weather conditions and at all times. The system can effectively detect objects underwater up to a depth of 200 meters and a distance of 1600 meters, and objects on the water surface up to a distance of 250 meters, as close as 20 centimeters, with a minimum diameter of 10 centimeters, and simulate object images, analyze object motion trends, and issue timely warnings. During emergency search and rescue operations by tugboats, the system can also assist in locating people who have fallen overboard, acting as a maritime emergency "safety stake" for tugboats.
