A Semi-Autonomous Merchant Ship Made It Across the Ocean

pcmag.com:

A merchant ship called Prism Courage made it from the Gulf of Mexico to South Korea using a semi-autonomous navigation system developed by HD Hyundai subsidiary Avikus.

Avikus says(Opens in a new window) that Prism Courage "sailed half of roughly 20,000 kilometers in total distance with the autonomous navigation technology HiNAS 2.0," with the ship's crew taking control for the other half of the journey. But the company is undeterred—it says that "this transoceanic voyage is the world's first case of a vessel using autonomous navigation technology."

"In this ocean crossing," Avikus says, "the Prism Courage equipped with HiNAS 2.0 was operated autonomously on the optimal routes, increasing the fuel efficiency by around 7 percent while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 5 percent. Also, the system accurately recognized the locations of nearby ships during operation to avoid collision over 100 times."

HiNAS 2.0 was able to accomplish those feats because it uses AI trained to recognize specific weather patterns, respond to waves of varying heights, and identify nearby ships. It's not yet sophisticated enough to handle an entire voyage—presumably because areas near ports are too complicated—but at least it can help the crew halfway across the ocean.

Avikus says "this voyage was conducted under real-time monitoring of the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Korea Register of Shipping (KR) to verify the performance and stability of the technology." The goal is to release HiNAS 2.0 commercially sometime this year, provided ABS likes what it saw with Prism Courage, and to continue to improve the system's capabilities.

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