DCN October Edition 2019

TMC Marine
Stages of autonomous shipping
STAGE ONE: Semi-autonomous ships with a skeleton crew
standing-by to intervene in the operation of the ship if
something goes wrong and that cannot be corrected by the
remote operator.
STAGE TWO: Remotely-operated ships that will be run by
remote operators without anyone onboard.
STAGE THREE: Autonomous ships with a remote operator
will be replaced by a computer which determines speed and
course of the ship for safe navigation and controlling the
machinery on its own for propulsion.
marine engineers as the reliability of machinery and their control
is established beyond any reasonable doubt.
“Marine engineers will be the remote operators of the autonomous
vessels, operating a vessel from a shore-based control station
depending on the operating route of it,” Mr Lokuketagoda says.
He believes that when an autonomous ship is being built in the
future, in a shipyard, its “digital twin” will be built alongside the
ship in a software developing lab.
“The digital twin will be the computer-based software twin of
the ship which replicates each and every function and behaviour
of the physical ship exactly the same way. The remote operator
operates this digital twin which is connected with the physical ship
through cyber space,” he says.
Mr Wilson says it is inevitable that the onboard ships engineer
as we know them will disappear.
“A ship’s marine engineer is a ‘hands on’ engineer and can turn
his hand to most things onboard. However on an autonomous
vessel the role of the ship’s engineer will be taken by numerous
personnel ashore all specialising in their own particular area.
“The present chief engineer may find themselves sitting in a
control room ashore,” he says.
However, the marine engineer will play a critical role in the
developmental stages of autonomous shipping.
“Marine engineers will play a huge role in the development stage
as it will be their practical knowledge, experience and feedback that
will be used by machinery manufacturers to drive how machinery
and vessels react to certain situations,” Mr Wilson says.
CHANGING SKILLSET
Mr Wilson says that as technology develops, the unique skills of a
ships engineer will disappear however we will still need engineers
to monitor and manage maintenance.
“More shipping companies are using manufacturers personnel
for maintenance and fault finding as technology overtakes or
overloads the knowledge of the ships engineer,” he says.
In this new world, operational technicians would replace marine
engineers and the need for a ship’s engineer would dwindle.
However, Mr Lokuketagoda believes marine engineers will
still be required to remotely operate autonomous ships and to
repair and maintain machinery on autonomous ships when the
reach a port.
“Some say that there is a third category of marine engineers,
those who are involved in building ships,” he says.
The transformation of the job context of marine engineer
requires drastic changes in training and education requirements,
according to Mr Lokuketagoda.
The current global education/qualification regime for marine
engineers is dictated by the International Maritime Organization
convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping
(STCW). For all marine engineers it prescribes competence
in four functions, namely marine engineering (1); electrical
electronics and control engineering (2); maintenance and repair
(3); and controlling the operation of the ship and care for persons
onboard (4).
“For autonomous shipping with unmanned ships, the functions
(3) and (4) will become superfluous as there won’t be any persons
onboard. Invariably this leaves the future marine engineers with
competence only on the first two functions,” Mr Lokuketagoda says.
“This completely changes the role of the marine engineer from a
skill based ‘hands-on’ engineer to a ‘brain-based’ strategic planner.
“This means instead of teaching marine engineer trainees to
do welding, gas cutting, lathe operations, fitting etc., we need to
teach them principles of mechanics, thermodynamics, electrical,
electronics, networking and control engineering to operate a myriad
of machinery involved in propulsion and navigation,” he says.
MORE OR LESS OPPORTUNITY
Given that the future role of marine engineers will require no
time at sea, this raises the question of whether this will make the
profession more accessible to a wider range of people.
“At present the marine engineers get a very lucrative
remuneration as they spend time away from home out at sea.
However, in future marine engineers will not be required to spend
time away from home,” Mr Lokuketagoda says.
“The shipping companies may not pay them the high
remunerations as they may be doing an eight hour-shift job.”
However, the number of jobs overall may increase as each
ship needs four remote operators on shift duty and a repair/
maintenance team.
“This is similar to what happened when computerisation
of various operations in offices took place.
“Computerisation helped to cut-down the number of staff
members who did manual data entry operations. However, it
created/increased the information technology jobs,” he says.
Mr Wilson doesn’t think there will be many opportunities to
become a marine engineer in the world of autonomous shipping,
at least not as we know the role now.
“There will be opportunities ashore for operators and
technicians, some of whom will work intermittently onboard but
perhaps not whilst underway.
“Shipowners and managers will still require a technical staff to
monitor and maintain vessels which will require a certain amount of
knowledge but the hands-on practical approach will be lost,” he says.
Mike Wilson, marine engineer
and director, TMC Marine
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