Simulation at USMMA
The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) has long emphasized a hands-on training philosophy for Midshipmen education. For quite some time, various simulators and simulation software, together with other hands-on training (including laboratories, a training ship, and a year out at sea), have played an important role in both providing and assessing the skills that maritime students need to acquire.
In 1962, the USMMA placed the Nuclear Ship Savannah power plant simulator into successful operation, a pioneering effort that soon became the model for many shore-based nuclear power plant simulators. That same year, the Academy also placed a radar simulator in operation and aspired to build a more comprehensive navigation simulator with some form of visual imagery. Thirteen years later, the Computer Aided Operations Research Facility (CAORF) became the culmination of that ambition.
In 1975, the U.S. Maritime
Administration (MARAD) installed a complex Visual Bridge Ship-handling Simulator
(VBSS) at the Academy for the purposes of maritime training and controlled research into man/ship/environment problems. The CAORF simulator was the first marine simulator ever to use Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI), and thus set the standard for all simulators of its kind that followed. Duplication of the bridge environment, detailed modeling of ship handling responses, a sophisticated control station, and the capability to simulate any vessel in any port or area in the world soon became the core of a complex human factors laboratory dedicated to the purpose of examining the human element in a number of marine operations.
Since that time, CAORF has provided answers in various areas of applied marine research, including:
- improving the safety and versatility of port and
waterway configuration
- evaluating ship and equipment designs, and
- establishing regulatory requirements and
standards for simulation training and certification.
Over three decades later, the need for improved training, ever increasing educational requirements and advances in technology has driven the transformation of simulation at the Academy to its present configuration. Currently the Academy now houses multiple full mission and part task simulator laboratories including:
