Knowledge

This PhD theis focuses on identifying the opportunities and challenges that on-board maintenance and practical operation of vessels poses in the development of autonomous ships. Inspired by the rapid development of autonomous vehicles considerable effort and interest is now invested in the development of autonomous ships. So far however, most of the research has focused on the legal aspect of unmanned vessels and on developing a system enabling a vessel to operate within the maritime collision regulation without human interaction. Specifically, the theisi looks into three research questions: (1) How is autonomous technology going to affect the workload required for operating and maintaining modern cargo vessels? (2) How is autonomous technology going to affect the operational patterns of the vessels? And (3) How is autonomous technology going to affect the reliability and utilization rate of the vessels?

The study is planned in cooperation between Svendborg International Maritime Academy (SIMAC) and University of Southern Denmark.

In this webinar, Adrienne Mannov from Aarhus University and Peter Aske Svendsen from NFA presented their research on autonomous shipping as this relates to seafaring and technology, based on their 2019 report, “Transport 2040: Autonomous ships: A new paradigm for Norwegian shipping - Technology and transformation”.

The event was organized in collaboration with MARLOG

Autonomous surface vessels comprise complex automated systems with advanced onboard sensors. These help establish situation awareness and perform many of the complex tasks required for safe navigation. However, situations occur that require assistance by a human proxy. If not physically present on board, information digestion and sharing between human and machine become crucial to maintain safe operation. This paper addresses the co-design of on-board systems and a Remote Control Centre (RCC). Using the international regulations on watch-keeping (STCW) as a basis, the paper discuss how an autonomous system is designed to meet the STCW requirements. It is discussed how the autonomous system is made aware of the state of the vessel, its surroundings, on-board defects or navigational challenges and shared with the RCC in a collaborating system perspective.

Autonomous systems strive to obtain salient features that include computer intelligence for obtaining situation awareness, decision support to a human navigator, or for facilitating autonomous decision-making in unmanned vehicles. This paper considers the case of autonomous marine surface vehicles, where high-quality decision support will be instrumental for obtaining a periodically unattended bridge and for approval of unmanned bridge operation with fallback through remote operation. The proposed design focuses on a sovereign-based architecture that facilitates safety, resilience and cyber-security. We address central elements of risk in the development and approval of autonomous systems; we analyze the challenges associated with testing, commissioning and maintenance of a highly complex cyber-physical system, and describe design principles for the sovereign agents architecture.

Marine autonomy research has focused on algorithmic and technical developments, targeting autonomous craft in restricted areas where international rules and regulations are not prioritised. This paper addresses the system engineering aspect of a highly complex system in which the seamless, predictable, and secure interoperability of vendorspecific hardware and software subsystems is a fundamental requirement for designing and implementing cyber-physical systems with artificial intelligence to assist or replace the navigating officer, such as autonomous marine surface vehicles. It addresses international rules in the sector and exhibits a system architecture that can fulfil the criteria for safe behaviour in foreseen occurrences and the capacity to request human aid if the autonomous system cannot manage a problem. The system thinking and engineering provided in this article have been applied to The GreenHopper, a harbour bus currently under construction and intended to undergo certification and enter commercial service.

In near coast navigation, buoys and beacons convey essential information about dangers. At night-time, selected buoys send out individual blink-sequences that are marked in sea charts. International regulations require that navigation officer on watch makes visual confirmation of objects and their type in order to navigate safely. With rapid developments of highly automated vessels, this duty needs be carried out by algorithms that detect and locate objects without human intervention. At night-time, this requires algorithms that decode blink sequences and are able to classify from this information. The paper investigates this problem and suggests an algorithm that solves the problem. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) with Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) are developed for classification. A dedicated architecture is suggested that includes both temporal and color decoding to obtain unique precision. We demonstrate how networks are trained on synthetically generated data, and the paper shows, on real-world data, how the suggested approach yields 100.0% accurate results on 44 real-world recordings while being robust to inaccuracy in actual blink sequences. Comparison with baseline signal processing and with a recent state-of-the-art 3D CNN model shows that the new blink-sequence classifier outperforms alternative algorithms. A showcase of the results of this work is available in this video: https://youtu.be/KEi8qNnKV2w.

This report presents the AEGIS roadmap for automated waterborne transport and is the result of the work related to Task 2.5 Roadmap for waterborne logistics redesign as defined in the AEGIS Grant Agreement. The task was to collect the results of the AEGIS work package 2 and 6, and the AEGIS use cases, to provide a publicly available roadmap for the redesign of more sustainable waterborne transport. Furthermore, the main AEGIS solutions that can be used to realize the redesign were to be identified, and benefits and possible costs were to be described, exemplified by future transport systems, including intercontinental transport. Furthermore, the focus was to be on unitized cargo (ie, containers and ro-ro trailers).

The report is based on the AEGIS use cases and outlines one logistics redesign for short sea shipping where the cargo is containers, and one for inland waterways shipping where the cargo is roro trailers. Intercontinental transport was not studied in detail within the AEGIS project, as it was not in scope. This means that no study investigating the applicability of AEGIS solutions for intercontinental transport has been done, and thus the background for creating a roadmap for intercontinental transport is missing. Instead, intercontinental transport is briefly discussed in a separate section of the report. Furthermore, even though the AEGIS solutions do not target the deep sea leg of intercontinental transport, they are highly applicable to the distribution and consolidation of cargo in the hinterland. For this part of intercontinental transport, the short sea and inland transport roadmaps are directly applicable.

For each of the two segments short sea and inland waterways, the bassline "as-is" scenarios are discussed to provide insight into current challenges and areas with potential for improvements. Then a redesign is introduced, where the AEGIS innovations and concepts are used to gain efficiency benefits and zero emission transport systems. As part of the redesign discussion, the gaps towards realization are also discussed and identified. These are related to immature technology, certain issues that are currently not addressed and need both research and development, and issues related to uptake and investment risk. Next, one roadmap for short sea shipping and one for inland waterways is presented, and discussed in terms of short term, medium term and long term phases and what advancements need to be made (ie, what gaps need to be closed) within each of these periods. Finally, policy support and actions are discussed in terms of what will be required to realize the roadmaps.

The two roadmaps presented in this report include discussions for the short-, medium- and long-term periods. The roadmaps are structured this way to facilitate a discussion around which aspects are mature, and which require more research and has a longer expected horizon to market. The roadmaps are written with the purpose of allowing the implementation of the new transport systems in the short, medium and long term, and a discussion is made around the sustainability of the transport system at each maturity level.

The European Union (EU) transport policy recognizes the importance of the waterborne transport systems as key elements for sustainable growth in Europe. By 2030, 30% of total road freight over 300 km should shift to rail or waterborne transport, and more than 50% by 2050. Thus far, this ambition has failed but there have been several project initiatives within the EU to address these issues. In one of these projects, we consider a new waterborne transport system for Europe that is green, robust, flexible, more automated and autonomous, and able to connect both rural and urban terminals. The purpose of this paper is to describe work and preliminary results from this project. To that effect, and in order to assess any solutions contemplated, a comprehensive set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) has been defined, and three specific use cases within Europe are examined and evaluated according to these KPIs. KPIs represent the criteria under which the set of solutions developed are evaluated, and also compared to non-autonomous solutions. They are grouped under economic, environmental and social KPIs. KPIs have been selected after a consultation process involving project partners and external Advisory Group members. Links to EU transport and other regulatory action are also discussed.

The European Union (EU) transport policy recognizes the importance of the waterborne transport systems as key elements for sustainable growth in Europe. By 2030, 30% of total road freight over 300 km should shift to rail or waterborne transport, and more than 50% by 2050. Thus far, this ambition has failed but there have been several project initiatives within the EU to address these issues. In one of these projects, we consider a new waterborne transport system for Europe that is green, robust, flexible, more automated and autonomous, and able to connect both rural and urban terminals. The purpose of this paper is to describe work and preliminary results from this project. To that effect, and in order to assess any solutions contemplated, a comprehensive set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) has been defined, and three specific use cases within Europe are examined and evaluated according to these KPIs. KPIs represent the criteria under which the set of solutions developed are evaluated, and also compared to non-autonomous solutions. They are grouped under economic, environmental and social KPIs. KPIs have been selected after a consultation process involving project partners and external Advisory Group members. Links to EU transport and other regulatory action are also discussed.

The European maritime transport policy recognizes the importance of the waterborne transport systems as key elements for sustainable growth in Europe. A major goal is to transfer more than 50% of road transport to rail or waterways within 2050. To meet this challenge waterway transport needs to get more attractive and overcome its disadvantages. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new knowledge and technology and find a completely new approach to short sea and inland waterways shipping. A key element in this is automation of ships, ports and administrative tasks aligned to requirements of different European regions. One main goal in the AEGIS project is to increase the efficiency of the waterways transport with the use of higher degrees of automation corresponding with new and smaller ship types to reduce costs and secure higher frequency by feeders and provide multimodal green logistics solutions combining short sea shipping with rail and road transport.