Case study · for Smart-Ship B.V. · THUAS

Azimuth Controller

A tugboat can point its thrust anywhere in a circle, which makes it wonderfully manoeuvrable and its controls notoriously easy to misread. This control unit lets captains feel direction and power instead of having to guess them.

Role: Bachelor’s final project: research, ergonomics and product design, individually
Client: Smart-Ship B.V.
Timeline: February to July 2021
Scope: Research · Ergonomics · Form studies

Render of two Azimuth Controller units on a dark bridge console: sculpted grips over glowing degree rings, beside a nautical chart display. — The final Azimuth Controller units rendered on the bridge console, one grip per thruster.

01Research

Azimuth thrusters can rotate their propeller through a full circle, which makes tugs astonishingly agile, and their controls astonishingly ambiguous. Interviews and questionnaires with captains kept returning to the same two complaints: the units strain the wrist over long shifts, and in the moments that matter most it isn’t obvious which way the ship is about to move.

A market evaluation showed why: existing units are built around the mechanics of the thruster, not around the hand that holds them for twelve hours. The brief sharpened into two words: comfort and direction.

Nobody looks at their hands mid-manoeuvre. The control has to say which way the ship will move, by feel.

02Ideation

Broad ideation first, which resulted in eight directions, evaluated with Four-Box and PMI methods, then narrowed to three concepts through weighted objectives, each scored point by point against what the captains had actually asked for.

The three survivors were modelled in clay over wood-and-wire supports and tested by a tugboat captain and instructor. Comfort testing at that fidelity is fast and honest: within minutes a shape reveals whether the wrist stays neutral.

Four quadrants of loose pencil concept sketches for azimuth control units, annotated in handwriting. — The eight directions sketched out to evaluate them better.

An annotated concept drawing of a control unit with callouts: one-sided throttle for precise input, throttle moves 90 degrees forward and back, wide elongated surface for palm support, mounts to existing Smart-Ship hardware. — A more detailed sketch of one of the three selected prototypes to be tested with the captain.

A man in a dark jacket standing at a console, his hand resting on a white prototype control unit mounted on a black plate. — A screengrab from the user test with the captain exploring one of the designs.

03Form

Four style concepts were made of hard foam and tested a final time with a tugboat captain and trainer. The answers came back as verdicts rather than preferences. The gradual palm rest made the body too wide. One throttle caught his finger both giving power and taking it away. One indicator he simply could not see from where an operator sits.

No single concept won. The final unit takes the body of one design, whose indents turned out to be structural to the grip rather than decoration, the throttle head of another design, the only one controllable with thumb and index finger through its whole travel, and another design’s throttle-arm indent, which he started using unprompted to push the throttle without pinching it.

The final form gives each meaning its own movement: the whole body rotates to point the thrust, the throttle throws forward for power. The mapping between hand and ship stays one-to-one.

A style development sheet in five numbered steps (shape of the concept, throttle shape, throttle input indicator, highlighting features, enclosing cap design) above four rendered views of the final black unit with blue highlight lines. — A visualisation turned to render of one of the final concepts that was tested.

04Outcome

The final unit consists of three printed parts: a body that mounts on Smart-Ship’s own control converter, a throttle, and a cap closing the electronics in behind a 58mm V-ring for water. It was resin-printed so it could be made in house without buying anything new, and it mounts straight onto their existing hardware and simulators.

The form does the arguing. Seen from above the body is an inverted T: the two rear extrusions widen the palm rest and curve down at the edges, dropping the wrist into a neutral angle instead of the cocked one the interviews kept describing. The palm rest floats, so fingers can wrap underneath it for fine astern control. Front to back it falls away along the curve of a resting hand, and the sharp difference between front and back is what tells a captain which way the unit points without looking down.

Every requirement and value from the research phase was graded against the final design at the end of the project, alongside recommendations for what Smart-Ship should take further.

The grey resin-printed control unit fresh off the printer, still sitting on its lattice of support structures, on a workbench beside a wash station. — Off the SLA printer, supports still on.

The finished grey prototype held in a hand: the palm resting on the wide upper surface, fingers curled under the throttle lever. — The final prototype. 3D printed, primed and painted.

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