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Robot ships: Huge remote controlled vessels are setting sail
4 days ago
By Jonathan Amos, Rebecca Morelle and Alison Francis,
BBC Science News

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BBC/Kevin Church Ocean Infinity Armada 78 vesselBBC/Kevin Church
Large robotic vessels like this are rapidly going into service around
the world
It sounds like science fiction. Ocean-going ships with no-one on board.
But this vision of the future is coming - and sooner than you might think.

You can glimpse it in a Norwegian fjord where a huge, lime-green vessel
is being put through its paces. At first glance, it seems like any other
ship. Look closer, though, and you suddenly see all the hi-tech kit.
Cameras, microphones, radars, GPS and all manner of satellite
communications.

"We've added a lot of additional equipment and designed her especially
to be what we call 'robotic'," says Colin Field, the head of remote
systems at US-UK company Ocean Infinity (OI).

The ship is part of OI's new "Armada" - a fleet eventually of 23 vessels
- that will survey the seabed for offshore wind farm operators and check
underwater infrastructure for the oil and gas industry.

Strikingly for a ship that's 78m (255ft) in length there are only 16
people on board. A traditional ship carrying out the same kind of work
would need a crew of 40 or 50. OI believes it can reduce the numbers
still further.

That's because many of the roles can be done hundreds of miles away on land.

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BBC/Kevin Church Ocean Infinity Armada 78 vesselBBC/Kevin Church
Marian Meza Chavira is learning to pilot underwater robots from a remote
control centre
Entering the company's remote operations centre in Southampton is like
walking on to a futuristic film set. The dimly lit room is vast, and
it's filled with 20 "bridge stations", each fitted with gaming-like
controls and touch screens.

Operators sitting in their high-backed chairs watch a bank of monitors
displaying a live stream coming from the ship's cameras and a multitude
of sensors.

A key test for this new way of working is commanding an underwater robot
- or remotely operated vehicle (ROV) - to descend from the deck to scan
the seafloor.

"It's amazing how everything is automated," says ROV trainee pilot
Marian Meza Chavira. "In some ways it's easier here than offshore
because you have so many more cameras for context."

Autonomy, robotics and remote operation, along with artificial
intelligence, will transform all transport sectors. Maritime will be no
different and experiments are under way around the globe.

Getty Images Fertiliser carrierGetty Images
The Yara Birkeland carries fertiliser to a port for export. The plan is
for it to work without any crew
In Norway, for example, there's an 80m (262ft) electric container ship
running back and forth between a fertiliser plant and a local port. In
Belgium and Japan there are ferries autonomously navigating between
destinations, berthing and unberthing at each location. And in China,
too, big autonomous container ships shuttle between coastal cities.

The advantages are obvious. With fewer people on board, ships can be
smaller, which means they require less fuel and have a much reduced
carbon footprint.

Rudy Negenborn researches autonomous shipping at Delft University of
Technology. He says the hi-tech systems needed to fully replace crew are
developing at speed but still have some way to go.

"We've had autopilots that let ships follow a path by themselves. That's
not so challenging. The challenges come when interacting with other
traffic or a port, or when there are unforeseen situations or bad
weather circumstances," he told BBC News.

"But in the end, this is going to lead to safer, more efficient and more
sustainable transport over water. I'm sure about that."

Getty Images Rotterdam guided container trolleysGetty Images
Robots working together: In Rotterdam, guided trolleys move containers
around the port
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2:20
The 12m Vaquita can despatch ROVs and sensors to the deep and then
recover them
Robot ships: The technology that's going to revolutionise ocean transport

Available now on BBC iPlayer

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Some smaller vessels are already allowed to work with no-one onboard at all.

The British company Sea-Kit International is designing and building a
fleet of these crewless boats.

One was recently sent to Tonga to map the still-active underwater
volcano that blew up spectacularly in 2022, a task considered too
dangerous to involve people.

We followed a 12m-long (39ft) boat, fresh from the factory, as it sailed
out of Plymouth harbour to inspect a WWII wreck. The bright-red vessel
called Vaquita was built for the Dutch survey company Fugro.

SEA-KIT/NIWA-Nippon Foundation/TESMaP Hunga-Tonga submarine
volcanoSEA-KIT/NIWA-Nippon Foundation/TESMaP
Robotic vessels can do dangerous work like mapping the caldera of a
still-active submarine volcano
It cuts a lonely figure as it skims across the waves. It's being fully
controlled by a crew 475 miles away in an office in Aberdeen.

Fugro captain Dmitrij Dadycin's commands, bounced via satellite, turn
Vaquita nimbly one way and then the other. An ROV is deployed to go down
to explore the sunken destroyer. All the while, cameras at the surface
give a 360-degree view of the surrounding waters.

"There's more pleasure to work this way," says Dmitrij, who spent many
years at sea.

"I definitely don't miss the pitching and rolling. And at the end of
your shift, you get to go home."

BBC/Kevin Church Fugro control roomBBC/Kevin Church
Connected: The Sea-Kit/Fugro boats have four independent satellite
systems and cellular links
Many questions spring to mind about remotely operated and autonomous
shipping, just as they do about driverless cars and trains and the
drones that are increasingly filling our skies.

How will these technologies change the nature of work? Can they create
new and different types of jobs to replace those they eliminate? How
secure are the systems being developed - can they defend against
cyber-attack and piracy? More fundamentally, are they robust and
reliable enough? What happens if a satellite link falls over?

"Everything we do starts from the standpoint of safety," says Sea-Kit's
operations director Ashley Skett from his workshop where the team is
putting the finishing touches to another crewless boat.

"When this vessel is at sea, there's no-one on board to fix something if
it goes wrong, so you must have an alternative system ready to step in.
This vessel is built almost in two halves with two of everything on
board. The clever bit is in software that enables the boat to switch
seamlessly between systems."

BBC/Kevin Church Fugro control roomBBC/Kevin Church
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is currently grappling
with all the issues surrounding autonomy at sea. It hopes to introduce
voluntary codes defining best practice by 2028, with a view eventually
to making them mandatory.

As it stands, larger ships have to have a captain - or master - with
them at sea.

"We're specifically going to be considering the role of the master and
officers on board a ship in the context of a remote control centre,"
says IMO director Heike Deggim.

"Would you now consider a remote-control operator to be equivalent of a
master on a ship? This needs further work."

BBC/Kevin Church Simon MacaulayBBC/Kevin Church
Ocean Infinity captain Simon Macaulay: "We're building up the knowledge
and safety case"
The UK government has already taken a view on this topic and desires to
incorporate the idea of remote masters into legislation.

"There is a huge industry coming and the government obviously doesn't
want to miss out on the opportunities. They want to see companies invest
here and operate their vessels from here," observed shipping lawyer
Fiona Cain from Haynes and Boone.

Back in the Norwegian fjord, Ocean Infinity captain Simon Macaulay
definitely has his eyes on the horizon.

"I could foresee a situation where you have a master mariner who's in
charge of a vessel remotely or a number of vessels remotely. Obviously
that needs legislation change and part of what we're building up here is
the knowledge and safety case. We send probes and satellites to the
other side of the Solar System, so this can be done."

Additional reporting by Kevin Church

Plymouth