Towards Autonomous Shipping: Benefits and Challenges in the Field of Information Technology and Telecommunication

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to an overview of components of an onboard control system of an autonomous ship. This system controls and operates the ship. Therefore, this system needs to be able to analyze the ship's state, predict its future development and analyze the consequences of its own decisions. The paper focuses on software aspects of the onboard control system, not the hardware. The paper provides an overview of technologies that can be used to implement the components of such a system responsible for planning new routes, handling the ship during the voyage, ensuring its seaworthiness and safety during the voyage, monitoring an autonomous ship from an onshore control centre, ensuring the robustness of the onboard control system, and collective operations of multiple autonomous ships. The paper describes benefits the maritime industry would gain from deploying some of the technologies developed for autonomous ships on ordinary, human-controlled ships. The paper also describes some challenges, especially in the field of automatic decision and reasoning, arising from the emergence of autonomous and smart ships. The main contribution of the paper is that it summarizes existing research in different areas of autonomous ship technology.

Challenges for the Education and Training of Seafarers in the Context of Autonomous Shipping: Bibliometric Analysis and Systematic Literature Review

“…The development of autonomous ships, along with education and training, requires a thorough understanding of the unique challenges posed by the sea, such as extreme weather conditions and the historical legacy of maritime technology [85]. Yanchin and Petrov [86] emphasize the extensive research required for the successful implementation of ocean-going autonomous ships, particularly focusing on information technology aspects in education and training.…”

A Personal Microcomputer as an Access Control Management Platform in Road Transport

“…In [8], the authors demonstrate the capabilities of Raspberry Pi to perform electroencephalogram (EEG) biometric tasks in real-time by developing a portable, low-cost, real-time system that integrates all the necessary steps of subject identification from the acquisition of the EEG signals. The authors of [9] provide an analysis of the possibilities of using a Raspberry Pi microcomputer on a ship, while an overview of the components for an onboard control system of an autonomous ship is presented in [10]. In [11], a Raspberry Pi microcomputer embedded with image processing algorithms is introduced to realise edgecomputing.…”

The Development of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships: Regulatory Challenges and the Way Forward

“…They are expected to have an on-board control programme to make decisions on the entire ship handling. The system is programmed to convey data from an installed sensor (Yanchin & Petrov, 2020). Research indicates that such ships must consider the activities happening outside of them to maintain safety measures (Dmitriev & Karetnikov, 2017).…”

“…Research indicates that such ships must consider the activities happening outside of them to maintain safety measures (Dmitriev & Karetnikov, 2017). Also, autonomous ships are expected to be fixed with remote monitoring sensors to measure sea dynamics and ensure seaworthiness (Yanchin & Petrov, 2020). Such sensors will enable the ship to transmit data to the onshore control panel, making it easy to monitor the ship's behaviour remotely, at least in the interim (Trudi & Ghosh, 2016).…”

“…Similarly, this trend has been welcomed in the sea and marine industry. Many researchers in this domain note that autonomous ships will undoubtedly take over maritime industry (Yanchin & Petrov, 2020). There is no question that autonomous shipping is the future of the maritime industry and "as disruptive as the smartphone, the smart ship will revolutionize the landscape of ship design and operations" (Rolls-Royce, 2016).…”