Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Dynamic positioning Offshore support vessel  Toisa Perseus  with, in the background, the fifth-generation deepwater drillship Discoverer Enterprise , over the Thunder Horse Oil Field. Both are equipped with DP systems. Dynamic positioning (DP)  is a computer-controlled system to automatically maintain a  vessel 's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters. Position reference sensors, combined with wind sensors, motion sensors andgyrocompasses, provide information to the computer pertaining to the vessel's position and the magnitude and direction of environmental forces affecting its position. Examples of vessel types that employ DP include, but are not limited to, ships andsemi-submersible mobile offshore drilling units (MODU), oceanographic research vessels and cruise ships. The computer program contains a mathematical model of the vessel that includes information pertaining to the wind and current drag o...

What Is LabVIEW? NI LabVIEW software is used for a wide variety of applications and industries, which can make it challenging to answer the question: “What is LabVIEW?” I have heard many conflicting opinions and debates over the years, so I thought it would be appropriate to take this opportunity to discuss what LabVIEW is.   LabVIEW is a highly productive development environment for creating custom applications that interact with real-world data or signals in fields such as science and engineering. The net result of using a tool such as LabVIEW is that higher quality projects can be completed in less time with fewer people involved. So productivity is the key benefit, but that is a broad and general statement. To understand what this really means, consider the reasons that have attracted engineers and scientists to the product since 1986. At the end of the day, engineers and scientists have a job to do – they have to get something done, they have to show the result...