Estimation of Sea State Parameters from Measured Ship Motions with a Neural Network Trained on Experimentally Validated Model Simulations

The use of ships and boats as sea-state (SS) measurement platforms has the potential to expand ocean observations while providing actionable information for real-time operational decision-making at sea. Within the framework of the Wave Buoy Analogy (WBA), this work develops an inverse approach in which efficient simulations of wave-induced motions of an advancing vessel are used to train a neural network (NN) to predict SS parameters across a broad range of wave climates. We show that a reduced set of novel motion discriminant variables (MDVs)—computed from short time series of heave, roll, and pitch motions measured by an onboard inertial measurement unit (IMU), together with the vessel’s forward speed—provides sufficient and robust information for accurate, near-real-time SS estimation. The methodology targets small, barge-like tugboats whose operations are SS-limited and whose motions can become large and strongly nonlinear near their upper operating limits. To accurately model such responses and generate training data, an efficient nonlinear time-domain seakeeping model is developed that includes nonlinear hydrostatic and viscous damping terms and explicitly accounts for forward-speed effects. The model is experimentally validated using a scaled physical model in laboratory wave-tank tests, demonstrating the necessity of these nonlinear contributions for this class of vessels. The validated model is then used to generate large, high-fidelity datasets for NN training. When applied to independent numerically simulated motion time series, the trained NN predicts SS parameters with errors typically below 5%, with slightly larger errors for SS directionality under relatively high measurement noise. Application to experimentally measured vessel motions yields similarly small errors, confirming the robustness and practical applicability of the proposed framework. In operational settings, the trained NN can be deployed onboard a tugboat and driven by IMU measurements to provide real-time SS estimates. While results are presented for a specific vessel, the methodology is general and readily transferable to other ship geometries given appropriate hydrodynamic coefficients.