A ship simulation program using free Scilab- OpenCPN for a ship traffic simulation

Studying the causes and how ships collide in shipping lanes requires a relatively expensive commercial simulation program. In this research, a numerical simulation program was developed using two free license applications. The numerical calculation performed on SciLab and the visualization of the ship navigation traffic on maps performed on OpenCPN plotter. The mathematical model of manoeuvring used in the simulation was the second order Nomoto model. Both applications run on a single computer connected by a free virtual port application. The numerical simulation program was tested. The results showed the developed numerical program could simulate several ships running simultaneously. The autopilot program was able to control the ship's heading to track their routes.