Applying AI to radio communications for better ship handling

Artificial intelligence (AI)-supported automatic speech recognition (ASR) could be used on ships to improve voice communications over very high frequency (VHF) radio.

Its use would enable better communications between ships, port and vessel traffic authorities, and shore services.

ASR improves the quality of voice communications and can transcribe radio communications to document conversations over VHF.

During ship handling and towage, ASR can also enhance communications between the ship captain or pilot and tug masters by translating communications into local languages, said independent maritime pilot, Mustafa Sokukcu.

“When tugboats are manoeuvring ships, generally, communications between the pilot and the tugboat crews are conducted in the local language,” he said.

“However, the ship captain, who is primarily legally responsible for ship safety, should understand all these commands or have them translated by the pilot, which is not frequently done.

“By applying ASR, voice communications between the pilot and the tugboat in the local language can be instantly translated into English and displayed in written form on a screen for the ship captain using the translation feature on a tablet or smartphone.”

Developments in ASR technology could also enable real-time translation of voice communications into different languages for the pilot, tug master or ship captain.

“Communications during remote maritime pilotage would be conducted via VHF radio”

Capt Sokukcu said hardware modifications are needed to VHF radio sets installed on the tugboats and ships to enable this future functionality.

“By taking advantage of the translation capabilities of multilingual ASR models, communications between maritime pilots and tugboat crews can be conducted in English, the internationally common maritime language, instead of the local language,” he said.

“This would enable the pilot and tugboat master’s communications to be understood by the ship’s crew without the need for verbal translation.”

ASR would also support remote pilotage, where a marine pilot with knowledge of the port could support ships sailing into harbours and docking at terminals from a shore base.