Korean shipyard gains smart ship system approval

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) has received approval in principle (AiP) from classification society Lloyd’s Register (LR) for its smart ship solution (DS4) for new container ships.

DS4 is a fleet monitoring smart ECDIS and surveillance system to enhance ship safety and mitigate the risk of collisions and cyber intrusions.

LR has granted the descriptive note ‘Digital AL3 Safe Security’ for the DS4 navigation aid and surveillance device, confirming its compliance with LR’s digital ships requirements.

DSME senior executive vice president Odin Kwon says the AiP enables DSME to install these smart bridge systems on newbuildings at its yards.

“We look forward to installing the system on board several ultra-large container ships currently under construction,” he said.

DSME worked with bridge systems supplier Marineworks to develop its DS4 fleet monitoring smart ECDIS and surveillance systems. “We will keep enhancing our Smart Ship Solution to reflect market demands,” Mr Kwon said.

Marineworks president Yong-Dae Kim said his company had supplied more than 400 ECDIS systems to ship bridges in the last five years.

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The Digital Safe descriptive note confirms essential systems for ship operations have been assessed in accordance with LR’s Digital Ships ShipRight procedure. These systems need this notation when they have remote access to onboard operational data for analysis, decision-making and control.

LR’s Security descriptive note means systems with digitally-enabled functions have suitable resilience measures to protect against cyber attacks or other unauthorised access.

LR has defined five accessibility levels for digitally-enabled technology on board ships, AL3 means the systems have digital access for autonomous or remote monitoring and control, but onboard permission of decisions is required and onboard override is possible.

LR marine manager and chief representative in South Korea Jin-Tae Lee said the AiP will confirm that systems installed on new ships are cyber resilient.

“As more ships are becoming digitally enabled, this AiP confirms the system has adequate cyber resilience measures in place to protect against cyber incidents,” said Jin-Tae Lee.