how does autopilot works in ship use?

Question

whether it use GPS to determine direction of travel one ship?

Answer 1

Auto pilot on a ship is driven by the gyro compass. The gyro compass is not magnetic but works on the principle of gyroscopic inertia and points to true north. Once set, the gyro compass will steer the ship in a straight line until turned off. It has adjustments for sensitivity in case it's too windy. You don't want to over work the steering engine in a storm.

Answer 2

Jive and Paul have it right. YES, Autopilots can easily land an aircraft and even bring it to a stop on the runway. Although directional control while on the runway would still be up to the pilot. DC-10's that I have been the Second Officer (flight engineer) on, had an Autoland feature, but was disabled due to the expense of maintaining the system and keeping the pilots "current" with its use. Autopilots take many forms. The 707's only controls the ailerons and elevators (the rudder has a yaw damper). The DC-10 controlled all 3 axis. It also has autothrottles and autospoilers. Newer planes include autobrakes. Autobrakes can be used for both landing and rejected takeoffs. The 707's autopilot can merely maintain an attitude or altitude, whereas newer autopilots can climb or descend and level off at a predetermined level.

Answer 3

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An autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. Most people understand an autopilot to refer specifically to aircraft, but autopilots for boats and ships are called by the same name and serve the same purpose. The first aircraft autopilot was developed by Sperry Corporation. It connected a gyroscopic attitude indicator and magnetic compass to hydraulically operated rudder, elevator, and ailerons. It permitted the aircraft to fly straight and level on a compass course without a pilot's attention, thus covering more than 80% of the pilot's total workload on a typical flight. This straight-and-level autopilot is still the most common, least expensive and most trusted type of autopilot. It also has the lowest pilot error, because it has the simplest controls. The autopilot reads its position and the aircraft's attitude from an inertial guidance system. Inertial guidance systems accumulate errors over time. These errors are corrected by using satellite navigation systems and altimeters. They also may incorporate error reduction systems such as the carousel system that rotates once a minute so that any errors are dissipated in different directions and have an overall nulling effect. Error in gyroscopes is known as drift. This is due to physical properties within the system be it mechanical or laser guided that corrupt positonal data. The disagreements between the two are resolved with digital signal processing, most often a six-dimensional Kalman filter. The six dimensions are usually roll, pitch, yaw, altitude, latitude and longitude. Aircraft may fly routes that have a required performance factor, therefore the amount of error or actual performance factor must be monitored in order to fly those particular routes. The longer the flight the more error accumulates within the system. Radio aids such as DME, DME updates and GPS may be used to correct the aircraft positon. Inertial reference units, i.e. gyroscopes, are the basis of aircraft on board position determining, as GPS and other radio update systems depend on a third party to supply information. IRU's are completely self-contained and use gravity and earth rotation to determine their initial position (earth rate). They then measure acceleration to calculate where they are in relation to where they were to start with. From acceleration one can get speed and from speed one can get distance. As long as one knows the direction (from accelerometers) the IRU's can determine where they are (software dependent). The hardware of a typical autopilot is a set of five 80386 CPUs, each on its own printed circuit board. The 80386 is an inexpensive, well-tested design that can implement a true virtual computer. New versions are being implemented that are radiation-resistant, and hardened for aerospace use. The very old computer design is intentionally favored, because it is inexpensive, and its reliability and software behavior are well-characterized.

Answer 4

Well, tom is completley correct in 95% of the autopilots out there, however there are some, and they are getting more common, that use a combination of gyro and GPS.
These systems are found on almost all cruise ships for example and keep the ship on a pre determined course using the autopilot, but the gps input corrects for set, drift and other external forces that might 'push' the ship off course.

These systems make navigating - well to be specific, make getting from A to B on a predetermined route (actual 'navigation' requires an awful lot more than just keeping a ship on course) an almost entirely automated process.

Before any ship can set sail she must by law have a planned route how she is going to get from one port to the next. Tradittionally these were done on paper chart, but in this electronic era more and more are also done on electronic chart systems (some ships now actually ONLY have electronic charts, with a few paper ones as emergency backups, called 'get me home' charts.). Once this electronic route is uploaded into the ships system, which noawadays incorporates the steering, gyro, compass, positoning, radars, AIS, and just about anyother electronic system you want it to, the ship will keep itself to the planned track without any input from the officer on watch on the bridge.

Clearly this can lead to dangerous levels of complacancy in the bridge so they have limited it go going in a straight line - if there is an alteration of course the systems will notify the officer who then must manually accept the ships proposed manouver to get to the new course before it will do it.

The days of using a sextant and smelling the way of the wind to navgate is long gone... on the modern bridge its more like star treks uss Voyager rather than the mayflower....

Answer 5

An autopilot is a compass controlled steering attachment, either fitted into the steering gear or externally connected to hold a ship (boat) on course.

Some can be connected to GPS, loran, sonar and or radar to avoid collision ( by sounding an alarm) with floating or fixed objects.

Autopilots can work with either a magnetic compass or a gyro system. If a vessel is made of metal it will most always have a gyro system, as metal will cause a magnetic compass to read the magnetic field of the metal instead of the earth polar magnetic field.

The electronics of a autopilot allows a ship to maintain course as read by a compass, and only alter slightly before returning to set course. The course is set by the captain, or person in charge of the helm.

Answer 6

The Autopilot has nothing to do with Loran or GPS.

It is connected to the Gyro Compass or the Magnetic Compass
and keep the vessel on a set course.

Answer 7

after 7 years. now use ecdis for autopilot. how the nav tech change.

Answer 8

Ships used to use land based transmitters called Loran. And at first plane also used Loran (but usually close to the water bodies for obvious reasons.

Now I believe they all use GPS because they don't have to be near land and GPS.


Good Luck.

Answer 9

Auto pilot is connected to the steering gear> And a control is in the helm station>which can be interfaced into the GPS system and other navigation systems> Plot a course and the auto pilot steers the ship on the intended course>steering in and changing course to head on the plotted course>There are many uses for the auto pilot>The compass is a flux-gate
compass> Not gyro as that's for stabilizer in stability>

Answer 10

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