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The Virtual Wind Ship project developed a distributed co-simulation platform that enables multiple organizations to collaboratively simulate complex interconnected ship systems while protecting their intellectual property. The platform addresses a key barrier to wind propulsion adoption: the need for holistic system simulations that span organizational boundaries, where no single party possesses all the required models and knowledge. 

The project produced Liaison, an open-source tool that combines the FMI 3.0 simulation standard with the Zenoh communication protocol. It is released under the Apache 2.0 license and is available at https://github.com/RISE-Maritime/liaison. Liaison allows simulation models to remain within each organization’s infrastructure while participating in shared simulations over the Internet. The tool generates lightweight client FMUs that contain only interface descriptions and communication logic, enabling collaboration without transferring proprietary model implementations. 

The platform was validated through co-simulations of a generic wind-assisted cargo vessel, executed across three geographically distributed sites connected via the internet. The demonstrations successfully quantified fuel savings from wind-assisted propulsion, and additional savings when an intelligent propulsion control system was engaged, for the selected scenarios that were simulated. Furthermore, the test also identified deficiencies in the provided sail control system, illustrating how the platform enables early detection of integration issues before physical installation, providing valuable feedback early during the design phase of the system.