An Intelligent Assistance System for Controlling WindAssisted Ship Propulsion Systems Ship propulsion concepts which use energy harvested from wind as an additional source of propulsive power are of great interest for the shipping industry, addressing both environmental and business considerations. Usage of such hybrid propulsion concepts is dependent on seamless integration with current systems and processes on board. An intelligent system, monitoring the windassisted propulsion system, assisting the vesselxe2x80x99s crew in its use and enabling automated, energetically optimized operation makes more widespread use of such technologies feasible. This article describes the design of such an intelligent assistance system, using an ECO Flettner rotor (which uses the Magnus effect to generate an aerodynamic thrust force) installed on the MV Fehn Pollux as an example of a windassisted propulsion system. Special focus is given to the approach used in the system architecturexe2x80x99s design for data acquisition, processing and storage as well as visualization using the systemxe2x80x99s human machine interface (HMI). Ultimately, the presented system helps further increase the fuelsaving potential of windassisted propulsion systems.

A New TurbineSail Coupled Propulsive System for Autonomous Sailboats * Autonomous sailboats are good candidates to perform longterm missions in oceans since they are windpropelled. Furthermore, wind turbine is a useful device that can provide autonomous sailboats with necessary electrical energy to support controller, drive rudder and sail. Some current applications for onboard wind turbines can reduce fuel demand of autonomous power sailboats. Apart from necessary electrical energy supply, autonomous sailboats also need enough propelling forces to move efficiently in the direction of the course.In this paper, we propose a new turbinesail coupled system that utilizes wind sources by adding two vertical wind turbines on both sides of the sail. Experiments are conducted in a wind tunnel. The results show that the system can increase the maximum propelling force when sailing downwind and allow further regulation of the force by slowing the rotation speed of wind turbine on one side.