How does autopilot works in ship use?

Question

whether it use GPS to determine direction of travel one ship?

Answer 1

An autopilot is a compass controlled steering attachment, either fitted into the steering gear or externally connected to hold a ship (boat) on course.

Some can be connected to GPS, loran, sonar and or radar to avoid collision ( by sounding an alarm) with floating or fixed objects.

Autopilots can work with either a magnetic compass or a gyro system. If a vessel is made of metal it will most always have a gyro system, as metal will cause a magnetic compass to read the magnetic field of the metal instead of the earth polar magnetic field.

The electronics of a autopilot allows a ship to maintain course as read by a compass, and only alter slightly before returning to set course. The course is set by the captain, or person in charge of the helm.

Answer 2

press a button

Answer 3

Auto pilot is connected to the steering gear> And a control is in the helm station>which can be interfaced into the GPS system and other navigation systems> Plot a course and the auto pilot steers the ship on the intended course>steering in and changing course to head on the plotted course>There are many uses for the auto pilot>The compass is a flux-gate

compass> Not gyro as that's for stabilizer in stability>

Answer 4

The Autopilot has nothing to do with Loran or GPS.

It is connected to the Gyro Compass or the Magnetic Compass

and keep the vessel on a set course.

Answer 5

Well, tom is completley correct in 95% of the autopilots out there, however there are some, and they are getting more common, that use a combination of gyro and GPS.

These systems are found on almost all cruise ships for example and keep the ship on a pre determined course using the autopilot, but the gps input corrects for set, drift and other external forces that might 'push' the ship off course.

These systems make navigating -  well to be specific, make getting from A to B on a predetermined route (actual 'navigation' requires an awful lot more than just keeping a ship on course) an almost entirely automated process.

Before any ship can set sail she must by law have a planned route how she is going to get from one port to the next. Tradittionally these were done on paper chart, but in this electronic era more and more are also done on electronic chart systems (some ships now actually ONLY have electronic charts, with a few paper ones as emergency backups, called 'get me home' charts.). Once this electronic route is uploaded into the ships system, which noawadays incorporates the steering, gyro, compass, positoning, radars, AIS, and just about anyother electronic system you want it to, the ship will keep itself to the planned track without any input from the officer on watch on the bridge.

Clearly this can lead to dangerous levels of complacancy in the bridge so they have limited it go going in a straight line - if there is an alteration of course the systems will notify the officer who then must manually accept the ships proposed manouver to get to the new course before it will do it.

The days of using a sextant and smelling the way of the wind to navgate  is long gone... on the modern bridge its more like star treks uss Voyager rather than the mayflower....

Answer 6

Ships used to use land based transmitters called Loran.  And at first plane also used Loran (but usually close to the water bodies for obvious reasons.

Now I believe they all use GPS because they don't have to be near land and GPS.

Good Luck.

Answer 7

Auto pilot on a ship is driven by the gyro compass. The gyro compass is not magnetic but works on the principle of gyroscopic inertia and points to true north. Once set, the gyro compass will steer the ship in a straight line until turned off. It has adjustments for sensitivity in case it's too windy. You don't want to over work the steering engine in a storm.