A specially fitted harbour tug became the first vessel in southeast Asia to be remotely controlled from an onshore control centre, demonstrating some of the first steps in advancing vessel autonomy
During sea trials, the tug displayed various autonomous collision avoidance capabilities in Singapore.
The groundbreaking project was detailed by Keppel Smit Towage managing director Romi Kaushal during Session 2 at ITS 2022, the 26th International Tug & Salvage Convention, Exhibition & Awards held 28-30 September in Istanbul, Turkey, in association with Caterpillar.
During Session 2, Operational Insights, Mr Kaushal was one of three presenters providing case studies detailing hydrogen, electric and autonomous technology focusing on voyage and vessel optimisation and emissions reduction.
Mr Kaushal detailed initial learnings from a pilot project testing remote-control and autonomous technology on board one of the company’s existing tugs, 2011-built Maju 510, undertaken in co-operation with the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and other maritime stakeholders. Others supporting the pilot were ABS, TCOMS and ABB Marine & Ports.
“The tug was retrofitted with systems and sensors to demonstrate first, a remote-controlled operation from shore, and second, to demonstrate autonomous collision avoidance activity”, Mr Kaushal explained.
Mr Kaushal stressed that autonomous operation does not mean unmanned. “Anytime you talk autonomy, people think unmanned; we are not talking about unmanned vessels. We are talking about various stages of autonomous operation, where there are systems that can learn. There is machine learning, and data analysis that follows and improvement of the system that will help crew do their job better, safer, put less stress on them, and be there to make decisions when it is suggested by a system. But autonomy for me doesn’t mean unmanned and that perception is not correct”, he said.
As a result of the successful sea trials, Maju 510 became the first vessel in the world to receive the Autonomous and Remote-Control Navigation Notation from ABS and the first Singapore-flagged vessel to receive the Smart (Autonomous) notation from Singapore’s MPA.
The next step for the project, Mr Kaushal explained, is to test two autonomous vessels together that are outfitted with different systems to see how they react under different collision avoidance scenarios. “There is not going to be a single development or system anywhere because people are taking different views. So, the first plan is to bring two autonomous vessels together and see how they behave with each other. What do their systems tell them to do and what do our systems tell the vessel to do?”
“The next plan by the port authorities would be to go into live traffic and see how we behave. Of course, the tugs will always be manned. There will always be crews on board to take action and override the systems,” said Mr Kaushal.
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