Data Interface for an Interactable Ship Bridge towards Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships at Human-in-the-loop Levels

This article presents a data interface for maritime simulators to facilitate the development of ship Automatic Navigational Systems (ANS) at different autonomy levels. The core architecture of this data interface consists of the simulator, Sim-PC, and downstream clients. Two data transmission channels are established between the simulator and SimPC using UDP and Modbus TCP/IP protocols, while data interaction between Sim-PC and clients is achieved through websockets. The article provides technical details of each data channel and demonstrates their application through relevant examples. These examples include supporting Decision Support Systems (DSS) development through UDP-based NMEA data publishing, external control of the simulator using Modbus, and remote control or decision support of the simulator through websockets from downstream clients. This data interface offers opportunities for ANS testing on simulators and provides the necessary conditions for the development and testing of all Maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS) autonomy levels defined by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).