Identification of the Relationship between Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships and the Operator’s Mental Workload

Abstract

Shipping is an indispensable tool for the sustainable global supply chain, and seafarers play a key role in safe navigation. Maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS) have been expected to reduce marine accidents by human error of the seafarers. On the other hand, MASS may have adverse effects on operators’ mental workload (MWL) and increase safety risks in some cases. This research aims to provide a scheme for identifying the relationship between MWL and MASS in the maritime that can be utilised for rulemaking and technological development. The provided scheme identifies the factors that affect the MWL of operators and sub-elements of MWL through gap analysis. Five factors related to MASS operation were defined, in addition to general factors. The case study was carried out by utilising the scheme on typical cases focusing on the normal navigational situation. The NASA task load index method was used to measure MWL. Ten deck officers with various ranks, including the third officer and captain, participated in the case study. The results suggested that various causes such as conflicted situations, machine–human interfaces, mechanical-style movements of the ship, reliability of MASS, and visibility constraints affect the MWL of operators. It also confirmed the verification of the identification scheme.

Exploring the Impact of Immersion on Situational Awareness and Trust in Remotely Monitored Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships

“…These are informative, but are bandwidth-intensive, especially when operating at high latitudes with limited satellite coverage. Importantly, video quality can be reduced without having a large impact on the SA of SCCOs as shown by Yoshida et al (2021) in their study of how MWL would affect remote operators of MASS systems. In addition to video feedback, some degree of navigational information would be available for control centres.…”

NTNU Shore Control Lab: Designing shore control centres in the age of autonomous ships

“…In the field of safety and risk science, researchers have examined the role of humans as safety controls in the operation of autonomous ships, applying advanced modelling techniques to predict how critical scenarios like collision avoidance will be coordinated [10][11][12][13][14]. Others have raised the challenges associated with human factors and training requirements of Shore Control Center Operators [15][16][17][18][19][20]. Meanwhile, applications have expanded from coastal "short-sea" shipping applications to shore control for urban autonomous passenger ferries [21] and inland waterway vessels [22].…”

Improving Ship Maneuvering Safety with Augmented Virtuality Navigation Information Displays

“…Research shows that the current e-navigation systems used in ROC provide a limited scope for the SA, as expressed in the model Goal-Based Gap Analysis (GBGA) [39] and research on human factor issues for autonomous ships purposes [38,[40][41][42].…”