The world has now fully embarked on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, monotonous tasks are being removed from human workloads and passed to robots or artificial intelligence. Automated vehicles are becoming a real possibility in the foreseeable future, when only a few years ago they were merely ideations in Sci-Fi films. Moore’s Law is proving to be true, as microchips shrink to nanoscale dimensions.
A new era is upon us, one in which people are encouraged to work in harmony with machines in new ways. And the rapid advancement of technology means that many doors are being opened that were never before thought possible.
Imagine vast cargo ships crossing oceans without a substantial crew. Imagine there are now sensors and machine vision where deckhands used to be. And a captain will no longer be steering the ship, but rather a team of computer programmers and AI experts helping to anticipate risk and navigate the ship from thousands of miles away.
Big Steps in Ship Automation
The global shipping industry and supply chain gained worldwide attention during the pandemic, with legendary bottlenecks at U.S. ports, cargo ships full of supplies floating offshore, semitrailers and railroad cars awaiting products to ship, store shelves emptied, and an overall unravelling of the supply chain.
“The supply chain infrastructure — hobbled by the pandemic slowdown and a shortage of space and workers — was not prepared for the tsunami of consumer cargo,” as NPR put it.
The shipping industry has been measured in its welcoming of new technology and many experts attribute the sluggishness of adopting it to the complexity of the task. However, industry innovators are creating a splash so large that regulators can’t keep up.
Before the pandemic began, there were those in the industry wading through the science and technology necessary to facilitate autonomous shipping and make it possible for ships to complete ocean voyages without the typically intensive human risk, labor, and error.
The Yara Birkeland
The Yara Birkeland has earned the distinction of being the world’s first fully autonomous and electric container ship that produces zero emissions. It is a concept that Yara Birkeland’s owners: Yara International and founder, scientist and innovator Kristian Birkeland minted in 2017. After delays in construction and the outfitting of its highly complex systems, it went through an initial six months of testing and trials before being christened and entering service in Norway in April 2022. The effort gained the approval of Crown Prince Haakon Magnus and was created in partnership with Norwegian companies.
“Captain Thomas Fevang who is in command of the ship during the first phase of the trials explained the ship is equipped with cameras, inside and out, including a night vision camera, and with the radar, the AI systems onboard detect, identify, and reacts to the obstacles,” according to The Maritime Executive.
Technology That Make Ship Automation Possible
- Digitization
Remote and autonomous digital technologies for ships are already being adopted by shipowners and operators on new vessels. The most likely for swift, widespread adoption is electronic documentation in shipping. Digitization of documents has become standard in many industries, but 80% of the world’s ports still track their processes and base operations on paper documents. The advantages of transitioning to electronic platforms are numerous, including making documents readily available, “improving security, traceability, and automation in reception and deliveries. It also reduces costs up to 70% in administrative management,” according to PierNext.
Sensors are a vital foundational element for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Automation at its core is made possible by transforming physical events into numerical information, which is only possible from sensors. As an example, the Yara Birkeland has a number of sensors on board that can detect obstacles and transmit information for the ship’s autonomous system to make better decisions.
- Machine Vision
A field of Artificial Intelligence that teaches computers to ‘see’ and understand the content of digital images. “Machine vision gives industrial equipment the ability to see, analyze, and act, which can increase product quality, reduce costs, and optimize operations,” according to Intel.
- Communication networks
Ship to shore communications have certainly evolved over the years, transitioning visual markers of danger like channel markers and lighthouses to now being able to know the exact locations of vessels thanks to the Global Positioning System, which “uses a network of 24 to 32 satellites orbiting 12,600 miles about Earth, with each circling the globe twice daily. Continuous ship-to-shore information can be sent by a ground station focusing on a satellite that relays data to the receiving sites,” according to the Steamship Historical Society of America.
Legal Sluggishness for the Trailblazer Ship
Regulatory framework, which is currently slowing the adoption of autonomous navigation, will be a factor that determines its viability.
Ship automaton is a whole new world, harnessing brand-new systems. Delays are to be expected with pioneer products – and in this case it’s “necessary to legislate for systems that have never been used before,” said Päivi Haikkola, program manager at DIMECC (Digital, Internet, Materials & Engineering Co-Creation), told PierNext. Haikkola is also one of the promoters of One Sea, an ecosystem made up of ten Scandinavian companies seeking to boost the automation of maritime logistics.
The unique technologies will be tested for two years in order for the Yara Birkeland to earn certification as an autonomous, fully electric container ship.
“We are currently working to get the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to establish a common legal framework for increased automation and remote operations in maritime traffic,” Haikkola said.
According to PierNext, the IMO recently approved a roadmap containing a work plan for the development of tools for the so-called MASS (Marine Autonomous Surface Ship).
Right now, the adoption of the new technology is dependent upon approval from national authorities and the tedium begins again if a ship is sold to another country.
A Shift in Mindset
Haikkola notes that cross-operational incorporation of automation throughout the entire logistics chain is important to find the greatest benefits that autonomous ships offer. Digitization of operations and a network with “higher latency and bandwidth” in shipping areas close to ports, such as 5G, would also be imperative.
Haikkola argues that it is easier to automate electrically powered vessels and welcomes OPS solutions. However, ports need to go a step further by digitizing their operations and providing a network with higher latency and bandwidth in shipping areas close to ports, such as 5G.
Another recurring debate about automation is the question of the human factor, which Haikkola clarifies.
“People will be involved in many stages of automation and will probably have to learn new skills. While it is important to manage the relationship between machines and people, maritime professionals, who are used to interacting only with each other, must cooperate more with IT experts,” Haikkola noted.
Researchers believe that while seafaring jobs will be lost to abundant technology, at least 50 times as many shore-based jobs will be created by transitioning to automation.
Cybersecurity Imperative in Maritime Industry
Although years in the future, the transition to fully automated systems and ships could mean that piracy of the high seas will take on an entirely new look. Instead of just desperate bandits, it could instead involve elaborate black hat hacking. Piracy of the future could involve the targeting of certain shipments and reconfiguring a ship’s path and destination. It could also mean sabotage of selected ships as global political tensions increase.
“Cybersecurity in maritime has a huge potential to affect the safety of the crew, vessel, cargo and even ports. Cybersecurity in shipping is concerned with the protection of IT systems, onboard hardware and sensors and data leak from unauthorized access, manipulation and disruption,” according to Marine Digital.
Increased integration is already underway within the industry and digitization of critical vessel systems essential for things like navigation, power supply and cargo management are connected to the internet in order to perform a variety of essential functions like performance monitoring, loading, handling, crane and pump control, and monitoring the engine.
These are so important to the functioning of the ship that the data and systems must be protected with multiple layers of safeguards that detail the required roles of people, procedures and technology, according to Marine Digital.
These safeguards will be critical in detecting a cyber incident and allow resources to mobilize to protect information, data and the availability of IT hardware.
“Connected hardware on board should require more than one technical and/or procedural protection. Perimeter defenses such as firewalls are important to prevent unwanted intrusion into systems, but may not be sufficient to combat internal threats,” according to the article.
Proper ship security will require proactive steps like periodic scanning and testing of vulnerabilities, network protection that includes segmentation, proper password policies, intrusion detection, staff awareness and training of procedures, and a software whitelist created by the system administrator or security team.
The future of ocean transport is fascinating to consider. Where there will be an increased threat from hacking, shipping automation will decrease the risk of human lives, particularly since roughly 50 major ships and their crews are lost annually.
