Remote controlled and autonomous ships will revolutionize the landscape of ship design and operations. Smarter ships and the Internet of Things will allow the creation of new services, which will support existing players to make their businesses more efficient, and will enable new players, with new business models, to enter the marine sector with the similar potentially disruptive effects that Uber, Spotify, and Airbnb have had in other industries.
What Rolls-Royce calls “ship intelligence,”—a portfolio of products and services, comprising equipment and system health monitoring, optimization and decision support, and remote and autonomous operations – will allow ship owners and operators to transform their operations by harnessing the power of big data.
The collection and analysis of significant quantities of operating data and the development of enhanced analytic capabilities will provide a massive set of statistical data from which robust trends can be drawn and valid predictions of ship reliability made. As a consequence, significantly more standardized and reliable ships will be able to be designed – capable of operating autonomously at sea for several weeks.
Such a rich stream of data will also allow ship owners to manage their fleet for optimum profit. By looking at data from individual ships together, they will be able to identify the best combination of route, cargo, maintenance schedule, and fuel price for the fleet as a whole, getting the maximum value from a set of very expensive assets.
Worldwide interest in remote and autonomous shipping has been driven by these potential benefits. They are expected to be safer, more efficient, and cheaper both to build and to run. However, protecting those data streams and the ship’s systems from hackers will be crucial.
Between 75 and 96 percent of marine accidents are a result of “human error.” This is often as a result of fatigue. Remote controlled and autonomous ships will not get tired, reducing the risk of injury and even death amongst ship’s crews and the potential loss of or damage to valuable assets.
Where accidents do occur with fewer or no crew on board, the risk to life is reduced or eliminated.
The threat posed by piracy to ships and their crews would also be reduced. Uncrewed ships could be built so they are harder to board while on board computers could immobilize or slow the ship making it easy to recapture. Recapture is also easier if there are no crew to hold hostage, and without a crew to ransom, the ship is less valuable.
Remote controlled and autonomous vessels can be designed with a larger cargo capacity, better hydrodynamics, and less wind resistance. With no crew to accommodate certain features of today’s ships, for example, the deck house, the crew accommodation, and elements of the ventilation, heating, and sewage systems can be removed. This will make the ship lighter, cutting energy and fuel consumption, reducing operating and construction costs, and facilitating new designs.
As a consequence, an autonomous general cargo vessel might reduce transport costs by approximately 20 percent compared to a more traditional vessel.
It is unlikely that there will be a single autonomous solution applicable to all vessel types. Some could be completely uncrewed and look radically different from today. Others will be a blend of autonomous and remote control; sailing autonomously in open water and remotely controlled where more advanced maneuvers are required, such as navigating in congested waters, and entering and leaving port. Some, such as cruise ships, are always likely to need crew if only in a customer service, safety, and reassurance capacity.
Be in no doubt this is happening. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. Embedding smart ship equipment into an existing vessel is the first step. We envisage a remotely operated vessel in local waters as the first stage and in operation by 2020. By 2025, we hope to have a remotely operated, uncrewed vessel at open sea, and five years after that, we expect to see unmanned ocean going vessels.
