Can ships be navigated from shore? And if so, how and when? The latest SWZ Maritime issue seeks an answer to these questions and looks at autonomous shipping from different perspectives.

Consensus appears to be that it is not a matter of IF autonomous shipping will become a reality, only WHEN this will happen. By now, autonomous shipping has shown up on the Dutch development radar. It features prominently on the maritime knowledge and innovation agenda 2016-2019 and the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment is actively working with industry to facilitate the required developments.

Developments Offer Benefits

One of the aspects of autonomous shipping that makes it particularly interesting for the sector, is that it is not an all-or-nothing challenge. Rolls-Royce, one of the largest companies actively promoting autonomous shipping, predicts that commercial autonomous shipping will not become a reality until approximately 2035, but the developments required to reach this goal will benefit us much sooner.

Smart navigation can assist crews in predicting and avoiding risky situations, partial autonomy or remote control of the ship’s systems can lead to smaller crews and the required fault-tolerant machinery can reduce the effort and cost of maintenance.

JIP on Autonomous Shipping

In 2017, the Dutch maritime cluster will start several major development projects to realise these benefits. A Joint Industry Project (JIP) with over twenty companies is scheduled to start in the first quarter (to participate, please contact Marnix Krikke of Netherlands Maritime Technology, krikke@maritimetechnology.nl). It will explore possibilities for remote monitoring, remote control and partial autonomy, leading to full scale demonstrations within two years.

Platooning

Furthermore, the European Union has decided to fund the Dutch-led Horizon 2020 programme Novimar, which will spend the coming four years investigating the viability of waterborne platooning: convoys of autonomous, unmanned or low-manned ships that are guided by a manned lead ship. With this, major breakthroughs towards the realisation of actual civil applications of autonomous vessels and their integration in transport chains is foreseen, complementing earlier initiatives such as Munin, ReVolt and AAWA.

SWZ Special on Autonomous shipping

With this in mind, Rudy Negenborn, Robert Hekkenberg and Klaas Visser of the TU Delft have composed a special for SWZ Maritime to give you more insight into the challenges that have to be addressed. In this special, the authors will inform you of the recent autonomous shipping-related developments and ongoing challenges from the fields of control engineering, marine engineering and ship design.

Read SWZ Maritime's February issue online now (subscribers only). Not yet a subscriber? Please visit our subscriptions page.

Picture: Will it become reality? Monitoring and controlling ships from a control centre on shore (picture by Rolls-Royce).