Ocean Industries Concept Lab
We are a research group committed to develop knowledge that support user centered innovation processes in the maritime domain. Ocean Industries Concept Lab (OICL) is located at Institute of Design at Oslo School of Architecture and Design. The group is rooted in design practices such as industrial, interaction, graphic and service design and carries out projects in close collaboration with leading industry actors.
Digital innovation has a tremendous impact on the Ocean Industries. However, the rapid change enabled by digital innovation, have in many cases made people the bottleneck for new innovation. In short there is a gap between digital innovation in the maritime industries and people’s ability to use these solutions safely and efficiently in practice. We argue the industry has to change approach to human centered innovation in order to take advantage of digitization and new enabling technologies for safer and more efficient workplaces.
The lab
Our lab includes a multidisciplinary group of designers, engineers and researchers. The lab hosts state of the art prototyping equipment such as mixed reality technologies and simulators. In addition we have access to state of the art rapid prototyping and workshop facilities.
We have excellent access to ships through our partner network (Figure 2) and we carry out many design driven field studies as part of our work. The insights from field studies are integrated with design processes in our design lab (Figure 3).
Results and research outputs
We have a diverse set of outputs from our research and innovation work. In addition to traditional research deliveries such as reports and journal articles, we have delivered a range of innovative solutions in recent years.
In collaboration with Ulstein Power & Control the lab developed the Ulstein Bridge Concept, which was a fundamental redesign of a ships bridge from the ground up. This project won the DNB innovation prize and was nominated for the Norwegian Research Council’s Innovation Prize.
Most recently we have been developing the OpenBridge Design System (ODES), which aim is to realize consistent user interfaces across all systems on a ship. ODES is the first open maritime design system of its kind.
Project portfolio
OICL has hosted a long range of projects since 2010 in a wide range of topics related to the Ocean Industries and advanced workplaces.
OpenVR
The project investigates how to introduce VR supported HCD processes in maritime design. The project has 5 industry and three academic partners. The project is starting second quarter 2020.
OpenBridge Design System (ODES)
The project seeks to develop an open design system for multimodal maritime workplaces. The goal is the achieve design consistency for all workplaces across an entire ship regardless of equipment and supplier. The project has a consortium of 29 partners. AHO leads the research project and is collaborating with University of South-Eastern Norway and with Sintef Ocean.
With 20 partners from the Norwegian maritime industry holding a leading international position, Openbridge develops an open platform that provides better and safer user interfaces on ships, simplifies multi-vendor integration and opens the ship bridge for new applications. Openbridge realizes modern digital innovation strategy for maritime systems and is an important step towards automation and more advanced maritime operations. OpenBridge will provide cost effective, safer and user-friendly ship bridges and open up for new digital innovation. The research is carried out in a collaboration between Sintef Ocean and AHO.
VR in design education
This is an internal project at AHO focusing on how we can use virtual reality in design education. We will explore content pipelines and design methods using state of the art equipment at OICL. The project is a collaboration between institutes of design, architecture and urbanism at AHO.
SEDNA -Safe maritime operations under extreme conditions: the Arctic case, is a research project that is developing an innovative and integrated risk-based approach to safe Arctic navigation, ship design and operation. SEDNA has a global consortium, with 13 partners from 6 different countries. OICL contributes to SEDNA with a work package on interaction design architecture supporting multivendor use of augmented reality headsets. It builds on ongoing research into distributed and multimodal user interfaces.
MIX
Mix is an innovation project investigating how to integrate augmented reality interfaces in manufacturing advanced sub-sea equipment. The project is a collaboration between TechnipFMC and OICL. The project integrates with developments in the SEDNA project and involves two senior researchers and three design assistants. The concept has been taken forward into further development and is confidential.
Holographic people in VR
The project explored the use of real time holograms mediated in virtual reality in design processes. The work is groundbreaking in that in allows for human to human communication in VR while removing any uncanny wally effect. The startup Holocap AS developed the holographic system, while OICL explore the use of the system in services and workplace design. The system is now integrated in the OICL lab.
DISTRIBUTE pre project
The project focused on situated user interfaces for hospitals. The project was a research collaboration between AHO, University of Oslo and Simula Research and included a large group of partners from public and private sector.
ONSITE seeks to strengthen the Norwegian maritime industry by developing knowledge that can secure an efficient feedback loop between field studies carried out in maritime operations and design processes onshore. The project is a collaboration between NTNU, Ulstein Group, DNVGL and PON power Scandinavia.
ULSTEIN BRIDGE CONCEPT
The project employed a large team of researchers, engineers and designers working towards developing next generation ship bridges on behalf of Ulstein Group using novel multimodal and distributed interaction techniques. The project results have received wide national and international attention in marine and offshore communities.
ULSTEIN BRIDGE VISION
The project employed a small team of researchers and designers in a project seeking to redefine future ship bridges. The project results led directly to the permanent establishment of OICL at AHO.
Contact
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