Polaris Shipping partners to design unmanned bridge operations

ABS will be working with a South Korean technology provider and shipbuilder to study how to incorporate autonomous shipping technology for a very large ore carrier (VLOC).

Polaris Shipping will test technology for an unmanned bridge on one of its 325,000-dwt ships for deepsea voyages in a drive to reduce manning on merchant ships.

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and Avikus will work with the classification society and the shipowner on a concept study to implement the autonomous navigation technology.

They will jointly concept enabling unmanned bridge operation on a VLOC during low-risk conditions, such as an open-ocean passage, which ABS said is "widely regarded across the industry as the most realistic form of autonomous shipping to be deployed in the near term."

This study will be undertaken in line with IMO’s maritime autonomous surface ship (MASS) code and structured safety evaluations by ABS.

“The VLOC, with its high proportion of open-ocean voyages, is a suitable target for the unmanned bridge concept," said Polaris Shipping chief operating officer DoHoon Kim.

"We plan to use real operational data to quantitatively define the boundary between human and automated operations," he said.