Rolls Royce launches automated equipment health monitoring at DSEI

This year at DSEI Rolls Royce launched its MTU ship automation system, CALLOSUM. Oliver Haller, Senior Manager Marine Automation at MTU, told MONS: “We’ve seen from our clients that automation on ships is becoming increasingly important, so we decided to develop a product that provides ships with automated condition-based and corrective maintenance.”

“When a given navy decides which ships should be deployed for which missions, it is key for them to know the status of the ship in order to do all the needed maintenance ahead of time,” continues Mr Haller. CALLOSUM automatically monitors the maintenance status of the ship’s systems gathering data that is then shared through all the devices on board and to the Navy headquarters through secure communication channels. This allows headquarters to have a full picture of their fleet and make informed decisions on maintenance and deployment. It also allows the ship’s crew to know where maintenance is needed, when it will be needed and what level of qualification will be required to carry it (in other words can it be done at sea or does it need to go back to port).

CALLOSUM also provides corrective maintenance. “When an alarm goes off on the ship for one of the systems, CALLOSUM is programmed to tell the crew what is going on with the system, when maintenance will be needed and what needs to be done to address the issue’” says Mr Haller. “All information is shared on a tablet that crew members can take with them where the system is located and it gives them all the instructions they need – from which tools they will need to what they need to do to fix the issue.” Some of the instructions are also provided in a 3D video when it is deemed appropriate. Information is pre-programmed according to customers’ needs, but where a system might not yet be in the database, the crew can also contribute to enriching it by entering photos, faults and corrective actions.

Currently, the German F-125 frigate is fitted with the corrective maintenance system and Rolls Royce is talking to the German Navy to extend the contract to condition maintenance automation. Rolls Royce is also talking to five other unnamed navies around the world.

“As for the future,” concludes Mr Haller, “we are working to develop a ‘big data machine’, that is a learning machine that analyses the behaviour of a ship’s system and can predict the maintenance that will be necessary.”

AV