The navigation safety and the maintenance economics arising in modern ship operations are today a matter of concern that involves owners, designers, builders, and authorities. The paper introduces the research project SHIDESS whose aim is to contribute to solve these concerns. SHIDESS is a cost-shared CEE research and development project being implemented by an international industry team led by DATAMAT S.p.A. The paper describes an approach to solve a specific problem of maintenance costs, through the adoption of an innovative concept for the monitoring and prediction of ship performances. This approach is based on an extensive exploitation of Artificial Neural Networks, as a very powerful technology capable of solving complex problems, supporting the decision making process. (A)
Samenvatting