How is One Sea contributing to the adoption and development of autonomous maritime technologies?
The maritime industry is embracing digitalisation and today, digital tools are essential for designing vessels and evaluating ship performance, with software and data analytics used to optimise everything from structures and ship layouts to propulsion performance and emissions. One Sea is working towards achieving an operating autonomous maritime eco- system by 2025. I truly believe this remains possible, but the main consideration will be whether investors embrace the idea. Time may not be on our side where newbuilds are concerned, but these technologies can also be applied on existing vessels to increase safety and improve performance.
Using digital technologies is the smart thing to do, but technologies alone do not create a ‘smart ship’. The issue is how to use technology onboard to make the vessel operationally ‘smart’. Many of our members have already equipped vessels with smart technologies, and the majority of these could be adopted for use on existing vessels. Trim optimization, remote systems monitoring and advanced voyage planning, for example, are increasingly becoming the norm on newbuilds. Situational awareness and advisory systems have also been widely acknowledged as tools which can improve safety.
However, for autonomous and related technologies to be adopted more widely, there are several things that must be achieved first. The most pressing issue is international regulation, and this is something that One Sea is heavily involved in. One Sea has been working closely with the IMO and regulators at both international and national levels to accelerate the development of a regulatory framework for autonomous ships. We also feel that agreement on a joint system architecture, and exploring data exchange between different supplier systems, would be helpful and support an operating autonomous ecosystem. One Sea is well equipped to lead this work, as all the major suppliers of these systems are members of One Sea.
* Senior Ecosystem Lead, ONE SEA – Autonomous Maritime Ecosystem
The answer was provided for NAFS magazine issue 143 in its special report “WOMEN in SHEPPING”