couldusetoolstogetarealisticfeelforwhat
was happening at sea.
VTT principal scientist Eija Kaasinen said
an autonomous ship of the future would
still need to be monitored and controlled
through entirely new kinds of work roles,
tasks, tools and environments so human
beings would not be removed entirely from
the picture.
Kaasinen said the digital opportunities
would shape the world of work in various
industries and the research would also
help create the conditions needed for
digitalisation to promote sustainable
development, employment and well-being in
society.
VTT senior scientist Mikael Wahlström
said it was important to understand current
work by ield studies so the creation of
innovations relecting positive aspects of
existing job practices could be made obvious.
Rolls-Royce is also involved in research
through the Advanced Autonomous
Waterborne Applications initiative and the
Machine executable collision regulations
for Marine Autonomous systems project
(MAXCMAS).
he AAWA initiative combines the
expertise of universities, ship designers,
equipment manufacturers and classiication
societies to explore the economic, social,
legal, regulatory and technological
factors that need to be addressed to make
autonomous ships a reality.
Aimed at developing a set of electronic
senses for vessel to navigate safely and avoid
collisions, the AAWA project is exploring
technologies such as sensor fusion, control
algorithms and communication and
connectivity to support this development.
Research through the project has already
identiied the importance of navigation and
collision avoidance, and a current focus is
on how to combine existing communication
technologies in an optimum way for
autonomous ship control.
Additionally, the UK-based MAXCMAS
project is looking at developing and
implementing real-time collision avoidance
algorithms for autonomous maritime vessels.
Lindborgsaidthatasanewerainshipping
came to light, ships would be treated
like integrated parts of larger production
processes or logistics chains, and the focus
wouldbeontotalassetutilisationandend
customer process optimisation.
He said ship management would shit
to total awareness-mode and remote
monitoring, support and operation would
become vital cogs.
Also,onshoreteamsandshipcrewwould
become more integrated and it will becomehard to distinguish between ship and
shore tasks.
For Lindborg, the increasing technical
sophistication level will favour large ship
owners with suicient size, as well as enable
new businesses, with traditional roles in
shipping set to change with innovative start-
up players entering the scene.
In Australia, while there has been a push
toward automation in operations functions
with the introduction of robotics and
artiicial intelligence, none of the big miners
haveasyetappliedremoteorautonomous
technology to their ore carrier leets.
Fortescue Metals Group CEO Nev Power
toldAustralia’s Mining Monthlythat while
FMG had always embraced innovation
and technology to improve all aspects of
its business, its ore carrier leet was not
currently utilising remote or autonomous
technology at its Port Hedland operations,
and the company was focused on the
delivery of its inal four ships.
FMG ordered a leet of eight very large
ore carriers from the Yangzijiang and the
Guangzhou shipyards in China that sit
higher in the water than traditional Capesize
bulkcargoships,whichallowsthemtocarry
moreorethroughPortHedland’srelatively
shallow shipping channel and get more
tonnes out.38 AMM December 2017 http://www.miningmonthly.com
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