Autonomous ships have received significant attention in recent years. However, they are not widely adopted in the maritime industry yet. A wide range of predictions have been made about when the technological change will occur. This paper analyses technologies that are critical to autonomous shipping and forecasts a range of times when they will reach technical and economic viability. The researched technologies are data transfer, navigation, cargo handling, fuel cells and diesel engines. The results indicate that the GPS precision required for autonomous mooring is not yet technically feasible and the expected feasibility time frame is between 2030 and 2058. The remaining technologies all show technological feasibility, but not yet economic viability. The forecasted range for economic viability of data transfer is a range of 2026-2041, while cost of automated cargo handling will reach the current expense levels somewhere between 2037 and 2101. Finally, the cost of a medium speed diesel engine and an LT-PEMFC Fuel Cell will be approximately equal somewhere between 2025 and 2060.
Recently, autonomous ships have gotten a lot more attention both in the media and in research. However, very little research has focussed on the effects of automation on the size of the crew. This paper analyses the effects of added automation on the required size and composition of the crew on a 750 TEU short sea container vessel. A Crew Analysis Algorithm is used to determine the cheapest crew composition to perform the tasks required to operate a ship. Using this algorithm, two potential automation options are investigated: automating the navigation tasks and automating the mooring tasks. Automating the navigation tasks decreases the required crew size in the normal sailing and arrival & departure phases by 3 and 1 crew members, respectively. The loading & unloading phase is unaffected. Automating the mooring tasks reduces the required crew in the arrival & departure phase to 2. It is concluded that since individual automation options do not affect the crew requirements for all travel phases, their effect on crew reduction is limited unless several options are combined. However, with a change in task assignment and different training of crew members, a reduction of the required number of crew members is possible.
Autonomous and unmanned shipping are currently hot topics in the maritime industry. However, there are many different views on how the ultimate goal of an unmanned, autonomous ship will be reached. On any given ship, a large range of tasks is performed every day, each of which need to be replaced in such a way that no human presence is required on board. In this article, different possible combinations of tasks to be replaced are explored systematically, leading to an overview of the most beneficial combinations of tasks to replace together and a logical sequence in which to replace them. This leads to a plausible implementation path from low-manned ships towards fully unmanned autonomous ships.
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