Marine simulators
Applied Research International of India, has just been awarded Seatrade’s Dubai International Maritime Award 2005 for ‘Innovation in Shipping’ for one of its simulators. The company specialises in simulators to train ships' crews and cargo handlers in port.
Their website has some good images of the equipment they provide. When you think about it, teaching someone how to steer an oil tanker down a narrow waterway doesn't sound glamorous - but it probably makes a major contribution to keeping pollution at bay.
ARI seems to have started life as a marine school - it offers residential training courses, survival courses, etc., as well as simulators. The website talks about an"advanced architecture platform that enables unprecedented degrees of modularity", but alas gives no details.
Simialr equipment is available elsewhere, eg at South Tyneside College, from Kongsberg, , plus many others. There's an international conference on marine simulation (Marsim 2006) due in June 2006. The last Marsim conference was in 2003.
