STOCHASTIC WEATHER WINDOW ANALYSIS IN OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE PLANNING POLICIES FOR OFFSHORE FLOATING MULTI-PURPOSE PLATFORMS

In an emerging "blue economy," large multipurpose floating platforms in the open ocean could possibly support a range of activities including energy generation, aquaculture, seabed mining, transport, tourism, and sea-based laboratories. A Markov Decision Process (MDP) framework is developed to deal with operations and maintenance issues that are inevitable; challenges arise from the complex stochastic weather conditions that need to be accounted for. Using data as well as contrasting synthetic simulations of relevant weather variables, we demonstrate the robustness/versatility of the MDP model.