Design and Simulation of an Arduino-Based Safety Device System for AHTS Auxiliary Engine

Abstract

Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessels require a reliable auxiliary engine monitoring and protection system to prevent severe damage caused by low oil pressure, high coolant temperature, and overspeed conditions. Conventional safety device systems on some vessels still exhibit limitations in real-time monitoring and alarm history logging. This study aims to design and implement a simulation of an Arduino Mega 2560-based auxiliary engine monitoring and safety device system integrated with a Nextion Human Machine Interface (HMI). The system is equipped with sensor loss detection, alarm history logging based on RTC DS3231 and EEPROM, and an intuitive HMI interface. Tests were conducted on system functionality, sensor accuracy, sensor loss detection, and the protection system. The results show that the system successfully responds to abnormal conditions according to the predetermined setpoints: overspeed shutdown at 1700 RPM, low oil pressure shutdown at 1.0 Bar, and high temperature shutdown at 95°C. Sensor reading accuracy yields average errors of 0.73% for the speed sensor, 0.99% for the temperature sensor, and 1.94% for the oil pressure sensor. The sensor loss detection feature and HMI interface function with a 100% success rate based on 10 trials. A conceptual comparison with conventional protection systems indicates that the proposed system provides integrated monitoring and protection, timestamp-based data logging, sensor fault detection, and flexible setpoint configuration.