Designing the Bridge
mattm's picture
Posted on:
Wednesday, November 8, 2017 - 00:30
Tags

As control systems for vessel systems are being delivered, some thought needs to be given to the layout and configuration of the vessel's command centre.

The design goal for the command centre is to ensure that the commanding officer has access to the information necessary for command decisions, and that those decisions can then be executed by senior crew.

The key operational areas that will need to be represented include:

  • Tactical: EMDAR tactical sensor systems, fire control and electronic warfare
  • Operations Management: Vessel resource monitoring and management, communications.
  • Science: Long and short range sensor systems
  • Helm: Vessel maneuvering and navigation

At this stage broader architectural principles are being considered. For example, is there any merit in already familiar circular designs, with the commanding officer occupying the centre? Is a large central viewscreen useful, or even necessary? Does the crew even need to face forward, given the dissociation from the external environment caused by the inertial dampening system?

What would you like to see on the Bridge?

comments

Comments

NeerajA's picture

Submitted by NeerajA on November 8, 2017 - 23:00

I'd like to see a separate area on or near the bridge where senior crew dealing with a crisis or situation could confer separately. It would be more interactive than just offering information from your console - something more like a briefing. We could include video links to specialists elsewhere on the ship that couldn't leave their posts to participate directly.

Alfisti's picture

Submitted by Alfisti on November 9, 2017 - 21:29

Sounds like a good idea to me, almost a briefing area. A feature found on some merchant and naval vessels is a Captain's dining room, used to host functions etc. aboard. It would make sense to position the Captain's quarters close to the bridge anyway, so we could even save some mass/volume by having that be dual purpose. A large table is, afterall, a good thing to brainstorm and work around.

mattm's picture

Submitted by mattm on November 9, 2017 - 21:38

It could even be a standing meeting - like the 'scrums' developers have. It could still be around a table, with the table having relevant controls for each position (although the common viewing screens would need to be mounted vertically to be visible to all).

The NX-01 Enterprise has a space at the rear of the bridge along these lines, but it didn't see much action. And I think it would be useful to separate it from the bridge for noise pollution reasons.

Alfisti's picture

Submitted by Alfisti on November 9, 2017 - 22:01

I assume "Operations Management" would also cover, to some extent, what we would normally expect of a bridge engineering officer?

At the moment the ship's bridge is likely to be located in the citadel, near the vessel's centre of mass, somewhere above boat bay and between the forward and aft magazines. I would suggest more foward, ahead of the space currently designated for the main cargo elevator (running full depth from keel to backbone just aft of the baot bay) as this would allow separation from the main machinery spaces and give a reasonable amount of room to play layout wise.

In terms of layout, there are certainly a wide range we can look at and draw on. Afterall, the con of a submarine is necessarially a very different layout to a modern Destroyer's Ops Room (being that the bridge will likely serve a combination of some of the functions split between Ops and the Bridge aboard a wet-navy vessel). I suspect some of what is needed will come down to how many personnel are required to handle the workload at each station. At tactical, for example, can one person handle managing outgoing and incoming fire, along with magazine queues etc. all at once? Or will they need one or two assistants?

On a personal level, my preference would generally be to have the captain/officer of the watch located toward the bridge's aft where they could see all (or, at least, the most time-critical... helm and tactical spring to mind) stations in one glance. I also think having the bridge itself, if not all the crew in it, oriented forward is a nice-to-have.

robh's picture

Submitted by robh on November 11, 2017 - 17:07

As  I understand it, there won't be an engineer on the Bridge, they'll all be in the engineering section.

You're correct, the Ops Manager will cover relevant engineering functions like power allocation and work closely with the engineering team to prioritise damage control work.

mattm's picture

Submitted by mattm on November 11, 2017 - 17:09

I expect our bridge will pretty much be a combination of a traditional ops room and bridge. 

In order to manage space and the cognitive resources of the command team, I think we should place some of the various teams in adjacent/accessible by acoustically semi-isolated areas around the bridge. By which I mean not behind a closed door but accessible via a short angled vestibule which would reduce direct acoustic transmission into the bridge.

For example the tactical team will need to confer with EMDAR operators - having those operators in an adjacent section would allow the tactical chief to step into the area to converse with them if needed, while not having that conversation add to acoustic clutter on the bridge that might distract the CO. Kind of like the way the "sonar shack" works on a sub.

I could see areas like this being useful for tactical, operations (for example the communications crew could be put in an adjacent area) and the science team (key science analysts could be put in an adjacent area). The key team leaders (chief and/or officer) would be the ones manning the bridge to relay any relevant information from these teams.