Enterprise Explains: How will autonomous technology impact the global shipping industry?

Enterprise Explains: How will autonomous technology impact the global shipping industry? From autonomous self-driving cargo vessels to delivery drones, technological breakthroughs are driving a leap into autonomous shipping at a faster-than-expected pace, provoking questions about how conventional shipping will be impacted. The shift will likely eventually lead to job losses in an industry that employs some 1.89 mn seafarers globally, but how much effort is going into integrating autonomous technology at an industry scale?

What does autonomy look like? Autonomous shipping refers to vessels that are operated remotely and require limited human intervention. The level of autonomy can vary from a vessel with automated processes and decision support with a full seafarer team operational onboard, to a fully autonomous ship with an operating system that can make decisions and determine actions independently, according to a report by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

Records have been broken: The cargo tanker Eidsvaag Pioner successfully completed a record breaking 13-hour, 160 mile journey off the coast of Norway while being managed and monitored from a remote operating center on land last year. A crew was on board the vessel, but the ship autonomically undocked itself and was autonomously managed. The Eidsvaag was supported by the EU-funded EUR 30 mnAutoship research project, which aims to develop the next generation of autonomous vessels.

And longer voyages have been completed: Hokuren Maru No. 2, a Ro-Ro vessel operated by Japanese shipping line Kawasaki Kasen Kaisha (K-Line), completed a 1.6k km roundtrip using an autonomous navigation system last November. The system proposed routes and controlled steering to avoid other vessels.

On a smaller scale, there’s movement regionally: Electric seaglider manufacturer Regent Craft inked an MoU with Abu Dhabi Mobility last April to develop and construct all-electric seagliders for cargo transportation at the Smart and Autonomous Vehicle Industry (SAVI) cluster in Masdar City. Regent will supply all-electric aircraft to operate dock-to-dock over-water routes. UAE-based maritime and shipping company Gulfnav signed an MoU in January with eVtol outfit Wings Logistics Hub to deploy their drone services in various operations across UAE ports, including the transport of light and heavy cargo, firefighting, and mapping and surveillance.

There’s still a lot to figure out: “There are a lot of things that do have to be figured out. Regulatory safety issues, piracy, any of the issues that are always dealt with by these cargo ships need to be cleared,” Savills North America Supply Chain Consulting head JC Renshaw told CNBC, “Learning via mistake in a cargo ship environment can be costly … There needs to be some element of human intervention that enables the technology to learn without the peril of learning via mistake,” Renshaw said. “It’s going to take a while to make this pivot. I don’t think it’s going to be something that is an overnight game changer.”

On the flipside, it’s safer for humans: Autonomous shipping could provide a long-term solution for safety concerns affecting commercial shipping crews, such as piracy in the Horn of Africa or ongoing Houthi-led attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. Cutting the number of personnel aboard and boosting automated processes would limit threats to human life in the event of an attack.

And cutting down on carbon emissions: Using AI for sea navigation could reduce carbon emissions from the shipping industry by 47 mn tonnes per year, according to a report by autonomous shipping startup Orca AI. By improving situational awareness and real-time alerts, AI tech would reduce the need for route deviations and sharp maneuvers to avoid close contact with high-risk marine targets like vessels, sea mammals, and buoys, Reuters reports. This could cut down an estimated 38.2 mn nautical miles per year from trips and save some USD 100 mn in fuel costs per vessel, according to the report.

Regulatory barriers persist: The IMO is currently looking to integrate new technologies into its regulatory framework to adapt to the fast-paced changes in the industry, according to a report. The IMO aims to strike a balance between benefiting from new tech and ensuring safety and security as well as taking into account the impact on personnel and the environment. Convincing maritime regulators to get on board with autonomous shipping is the biggest hurdle, Kongsberg Maritime’s Remote and Autonomous Solutions VP Ville Vihervaara told CNBC. The application of traditional legal product liability regulation to autonomous shipping will also need to be evaluated, as this will have a knock-on effect on the way in which maritime liability and ins. is applied, according to a Rolls-Royce report (pdf).

Do we have a timeline? Based on the current pace of tech development, remote controlled unmanned ocean-going ships are forecasted to be in application as soon as 2030 and autonomous unmanned ocean-going ships in 2035, a Rolls Royce-led study on Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications Initiative (AAWA) report (pdf) finds.

What’s next: “As disruptive as the smartphone, the smart ship will revolutionize the landscape of ship design and operations,” Rolls-Royce President Mikael Mäkinen said in the report. Vessels will be able to monitor their own health, distinguish and communicate with their surroundings and make clear decisions based on this information. Advancing sensor technology — found in existing autonomous vehicle technology — in vessels, control algorithms for navigation, and boosting connectivity between the ship and its operational crew on land are all areas being currently explored, according to the report.