Alexander Pinskiy: “Russian companies can benefit from the autonomous navigation”
Autonomous or unmanned navigation is one of the most promising developments of information technologies in the maritime and river transport. Currently Russian companies are working on trial implementation of “artificial intelligence” on several existing vessels. MARINET is going to test technologies for autonomous ships in practice in the Arctic, Baltic, Black and Azov seas. What needs to be done to make Russia a leader in the autonomous shipping, told ntinews.ru General Director of Industry Association MARINET Alexander Pinskiy.
-How the experiment on unmanned navigation will change the market of shipbuilding and maritime transportation?
-The trial project on automated and remote navigation is intended to demonstrate in practice the possibility of safe and effective application of autonomous (unmanned) navigation technologies. The outputs of the trial implementation of these technologies should bring the main result of the project — the beginning of the regular usage of these technologies within the existing conventional regulation, firstly in Russia and then globally.
We expect that these solutions will enable decrease of the required crew onboard of Russian vessels starting from 2021, immediately after the completion of the trial project. Then, after proper changes in the international regulation we expect changes in requirements to design, construction and operation of fully autonomous vessels. A new class of systems, which significantly increase the safety of navigation and reduce the cost of shipping companies for the crew, will be a significant factor in changing the market of digital navigation and shipbuilding. We expect that Russian companies participating in the project will become not only pioneers of this change, but also the main beneficiaries in the global market.
- During the experiment three shipping companies equipped their vessels with autonomous navigation elements. What work has been done ashore?
-Within the trial project, we equip with the additional equipment 4 vessels as well as shore-based control centers of the shipping companies. Remote control centers will be used to test remote control technologies for autonomous ships. Also, within the project we will test the option of caravan control: when the remote control center to be installed not on the shore, but on the head ship of the caravan, and will control the movement of other ships in the caravan.
-What will the crew do while the “autonomous ship” performs maneuvers?
-During the trial project the crew will keep watching and monitoring the operation of systems, both main and experimental. The methodology of the trial project is designed in such a way that the tests of the new systems do not violate existing requirements — on the contrary, during the tests, the level of human control is further increased to eliminate any abnormal situations. In the future, when the usage of autonomous navigation systems will become a regular practice, the crew will supervise the actions of automatic systems, taking control in specified conditions.
-What kind of procedures will the autonomous systems perform: control of the vessel systems, change of speed, maneuvering?
-Even today, the management of technical means of the vessel, except for the navigation itself, is very highly automated. Within the framework of the trial project, we focus on the tasks of controlling the vessel movement: changing the course and speed to diverge from objects and avoid collisions, maneuvering the vessel taking into account navigational hazards.
-What is the current progress in the autonomous navigation in the leading countries (United Kingdom, Norway, etc.)? Will this experiment help to reduce the backlog of Russia or even provide the access to a leading position?
- Colleagues from Norway, UK, Japan, the USA and China have started developments in this direction a few years ago. The first practical steps have already been taken there, and several classification societies have developed the first guidelines for Autonomous vessels. I would note Norwegian concern Kongsberg as an obvious leader in this area — especially after its acquisition of Rolls Royce Marine this year — and the Norwegian classification society DNV-GL. We started later, but due to this large-scale and ambitious project we want to be the first at the finish line — that means to get commercial solutions that can be used in regular practice. It is a global technological race and we want to be the first.
