HANSA 10-2020

Schiffstechnik | Ship Technology
Holistic maintenance
support with digital
assistance system
Digital support
Bridge Simulator
© NHL
© Friedewald
© MAN Diesel Academy
Digital transformation in flow
Unmanned Operations, Virtual and Augmented Reality and Unified Data Models: This
year’s COMPIT conference on Computer Applications and Information Technology in the
Maritime Industries took place under special Corona conditions – albeit with no lack of
expertise, reports Hans Payer
COMPIT 2020 was held in the former
monastery Certosa di Pontignano
in the Chianti Region of Toscany.
Volker Bertram, who always selects
appealing locations and venues for his
conferences, made sure that everyone
was safe, with very much space in and
around the Certosa. This was a very special
and intimate meeting with little diversion
and good discussions in the arcades
or under the cypress trees.
Autonomous ships
The fully autonomous ship – is it a viable
vision? Analysis of ship accidents always
finds a relatively high number of consequential
accidents due to human error.
Would the replacement of the human
factor by Artificial Intelligence, AI, be a
logical consequence? For several years,
visionaries have seen the future of AI
and autonomous vehicles on the roads,
in the skies or on the oceans just around
the corner. Only recently have doubts
come up about autonomous ships. Can
AI cope with the unexpected, calling for
quick and reliable reaction?
With an eye on »On-board Human
Operators: Liabilities or Assets« Stig
Eriksen from Denmark investigates
how unmanned operations will influence
the ability to detect and prevent
near-miss incidents from becoming
an accident. He cautioned that in unmanned
operations new kinds of incidents
might occur. From the analysis of
481 near misses he found that 87% were
detected by the crew. On-board safety
systems would have detected the incident
eventually in many cases, but only
after it had become more severe. Monitoring
and failure detection devices
would have to be significantly extended
for unmanned operation.
Realistically, AI cannot fully take over
control from human operators today. It
is missing intuition and has no »gut feeling«.
There are strong indications that –
for now – trained and experienced humans
will remain necessary as a last line
of defence in the automated system.
Marco Bibuli from CNR-INM Genova
gave an example for an autonomous water-surface
vehicle (ASV). The small catamaran
SWAMP (Shallow Water Autonomous
Multipurpose Platform) with an
elastic outside shell was described, built
particularly for the investigation of wetland
areas. It is driven by four 360° water-jet
thrusters mounted at the fore and
aft end of each hull in a way, that they do
not protrude below the keel-line. The dimensions
are 1,230 x 1,250 x 150 mm. It
can be seen as a Water Drone. The vessel
is equipped with Artificial Intelligence
including self- and imitation learning
capabilities and can be trained for its diverse
missions.
The project foresees several such
units operating together within a network,
allowing wider coverage, collect
more data and enhance the overall robustness.
Bibuli explained the use of
AI and machine learning in connection
with these vehicles and showed examples,
where partly unskilled laymen
teach the vehicle to ride a difficult path
autonomously.
VR and AR
The use of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented
Reality (AR) has progressed successfully
in the past few years in many
fields. Peter D. Petersen from MAN Energy
Solutions in Copenhagen delivered
insights on »Enhancing the Quality
and Reliability of Maintenance Operations
using Mixed Reality«. A multimedia
application brings interactive and
optimised troubleshooting instructions,
as well as automatic reporting for twoand
four-stroke engines to the maintenance
engineer in action, augmenting
real life engine components and maintenance
scenarios. Using mobile devices or
head mounted displays (HMD) the marine
engineer has access to visual guidance
in 3D, written instructions, diagrams,
checklists, videos, spare-parts
info and much more. The application has
been tested on the ore carrier »Berge K2«,
where the system was connected to the
planned maintenance system to generate
reports and resupply stocks.
Stephan Procee from NHL West-Terschelling
reported on an experiment to
measure the effect of AR on »Situational
Awareness« of seafarers. The interface
is based on design principles such as environmental
data and ship’s characteristics,
particularly regarding manoeuvring.
The effect of additional operational infor-
46 HANSA – International Maritime Journal 10 | 2020