RRS James Cook Software Control Winch Drive Upgrade

RRS James Cook has a set of six electrically-driven winches and associated hydraulic outhauling equipment that were commissioned about ten years ago. The winches are used for oceanographic research. A winch typically consists of a Storage Winch and a Traction Winch; one of the winches consists only of a Storage Winch. The control system supplied by the OEM is based on two main controllers. These are industrial computers and are essentially ‘black boxes’. It is likely that these will not be fully supported into...