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Abstract
Virtually every new design in the modern society is supported by information technology tools. Starting from computer aided designs, backboned with adequate databases and operated with lifecycle management of the information. If this principle applies generically, it comes without saying that must be put to the limit when dealing with the most complex, expensive, restricted and deadly designs ever, only matched -somehow- by the space technology: submarines. Among the new concepts that arose related with new information technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT) has a special role due to its potential, and to address the challenge of the IoT for submarines, it is essential that Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tools adapt each other in different manners. The design of a submarine comprises a large number of very different disciplines. It seeks to optimize the product from different points of view, requiring design systems that need to be highly connected. They must be able to talk to one another, exchange data, geometry and attributes. It is necessary to have data communication agreements through either Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or common
interfaces. The different systems operating on-board a submarine should not work autonomously, taking isolated decisions based on their own sensors feedback. Instead, there must be a higher-level supervisor system, capable to evaluate how they interact and what consequences are derived from system A action that would affect to systems B, C, D… That´s a huge responsibility, due to the submarine involves a very costly platform (the boat) that contains inside an even more expensive -and deadly- equipment (the combat system). Such higher-level supervisor should be powerful enough to cope with the thousands of different inputs, process them fast and accurately, take some automatic decisions and, finally, ease the work for the manager of the supervisor in the critical decisions: the human intelligence. In this paper it is explained how future submarines should be connected to IoT. The connection of smart devices within a submarine must be human controlled. The control should start from the design tools because they control the shipbuilding process from the early stages of the design up to the final production. The set of design tools, product lifecycle management and device must be inter connected among them and will be the platform for the submarines connected to IoT. The information shared in the scope of the IoT must be managed by the human along the whole lifecycle of the submarine, starting from the beginning of the initial design. This need, as it will be described, requires the CAD tools to be prepared with specific characteristics to handle that information.
interfaces. The different systems operating on-board a submarine should not work autonomously, taking isolated decisions based on their own sensors feedback. Instead, there must be a higher-level supervisor system, capable to evaluate how they interact and what consequences are derived from system A action that would affect to systems B, C, D… That´s a huge responsibility, due to the submarine involves a very costly platform (the boat) that contains inside an even more expensive -and deadly- equipment (the combat system). Such higher-level supervisor should be powerful enough to cope with the thousands of different inputs, process them fast and accurately, take some automatic decisions and, finally, ease the work for the manager of the supervisor in the critical decisions: the human intelligence. In this paper it is explained how future submarines should be connected to IoT. The connection of smart devices within a submarine must be human controlled. The control should start from the design tools because they control the shipbuilding process from the early stages of the design up to the final production. The set of design tools, product lifecycle management and device must be inter connected among them and will be the platform for the submarines connected to IoT. The information shared in the scope of the IoT must be managed by the human along the whole lifecycle of the submarine, starting from the beginning of the initial design. This need, as it will be described, requires the CAD tools to be prepared with specific characteristics to handle that information.