1、 Report Feasibility Study for an Unmanned Deep Sea Bulk Ship and Short Sea Container Ship Author(s):Odd Erik Mrkrid,Pauline Rstum Bellingmo,Egil Wille Report No:OC2022 A-110 Client(s)(pos partner):SFI Autoship 1 of 70 SINTEF Ocean AS Postal address:Otto Nielsens veg 10 7465 Trondheim Switchboard:+472、 46415000 Enterprise/VAT No:NO 937 357 370 MVA Report Feasibility Study for an Unmanned Deep sea Bulk Ship and Short sea Container Ship KEYWORDS Unmanned,bulk ship,short-sea container ship,technology,regulations,commercial VERSION 1.0 DATE 2023-02-07 AUTHOR(S)Odd Erik Mrkrid,Pauline Rstum Bellingmo,3、Egil Wille CLIENT(S)SFI Autoship CLIENTS REFERENCE Anastasios Lekkas PROJECT NO.302005882 NO.OF PAGES/APPENDICES 70 ABSTRACT Autonomous ships have gone from being an odd research topic to becoming reality within cargo transport.However,so far both research and commercial projects have focused on sma4、ller ships,with a certain route between specific ports and operating purely in national waters.This report investigates whether it is feasible to operate a large cargo ship,freely on any route,visit any port,and sail in national and international waters,just like a conventional ship.The feasibility 5、is assessed based on technical,regulatory,and commercial(economic,environmental,and social)aspects.The conclusions are based on a traffic light model,where green means feasible today,yellow within five years,and red five years or beyond.The results show that a fully autonomous cargo ship is not feas6、ible today.However,individual functions on the ship can be automated with economic and environmental gains.To learn which functions,you should read this report!PREPARED BY Odd Erik Mrkrid SIGNATURE CHECKED BY Hvard Nordahl SIGNATURE APPROVED BY Trond Johnsen SIGNATURE REPORT NO.OC2022 A-110 ISBN OC27、022 A-110 CLASSIFICATION Open CLASSIFICATION THIS PAGE Open Odd Erik Mrkrid(Feb 7,2023 10:03 GMT+1)Hvard Nordahl(Feb 7,2023 13:51 GMT+1)Hvard NordahlTrond Johnsen(Feb 7,2023 22:38 GMT+1)Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 2 of 70 Document history VERSION DATE VERSION DESCRIPTION 8、0.1 2022-10-20 First draft 0.2 2022-11-01 Input for project partners 03.2022-12-14 Internal QA.1.0 2023-02-07 Final version Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 3 of 70 Table of Contents Executive Summary.5 Definitions.7 Abbreviations.7 Project Background.9 1 Introduction.10 1.1 A9、ssumptions.11 2 Background.12 2.1 Levels of autonomy.12 2.2 Communication Coverage.12 2.3 Autonomous Ship Initiatives.13 3 Methodology.14 3.1 Operational Phases.14 3.2 Crew tasks.15 3.3 Assessments.16 4 Use Cases.17 4.1 Deep sea Bulk Ship Operations.17 4.2 Short sea Container Ship.18 5 Technical Fea10、sibility.19 5.1 Navigation and Control.19 5.2 Power and Propulsion.23 5.3 Communication.26 5.4 Cargo Handling.29 5.5 Mooring.30 5.6 Discussion.31 5.7 Technical Conclusion.32 6 Regulatory feasibility.34 6.1 Relevant regulations.34 6.2 Navigation and control.43 6.3 Power and Propulsion.44 6.4 Communic11、ation.46 6.5 Cargo handling.49 6.6 Mooring.49 6.7 Discussion.50 Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 4 of 70 6.8 Conclusion.50 7 Commercial Feasibility.52 7.1 Overall Key Performance Indicators(KPIs).53 7.2 Navigation and control.55 7.3 Power and Propulsion.58 7.4 Communication.6012、 7.5 Cargo Handling.61 7.6 Mooring.62 7.7 Commercial Conclusion.64 8 Conclusion.66 8.1 Recommendations.67 8.2 Further Work.68 References.69 Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 5 of 70 Executive Summary With increasing pressure to reduce the environmental footprint,increase safety13、,lack of seafarers,and high competition on cost,the maritime industry has started to investigate autonomous ships as an alternative to conventional ships.Automation can remove people from hazardous operations,such as mooring and cargo handling,and thus increase the safety.Moreover,autonomous ships a14、re an enabler for energy efficiency measures,such as weather routing,which can contribute to reduce the environmental footprint.Today there is a lack of seafarers,which is expected to decrease even more in the future.Autonomy in ships can reduce the needed manning.Additionally,since crew cost accoun15、ts for about half of the operational expenditure(OPEX),a lot can be saved by reducing the manning,especially by moving well paid officers on shore.Moreover,superstructure on the ship,such as bridge and hotel areas,can be removed on unmanned ships,making the ship cheaper to build and enabling the shi16、p to be smaller and/or transport more cargo.This will reduce the energy for transport per cargo unit.However,unmanned ships may introduce redundancy requirements that would increase the cost.The objective of this feasibility study is to evaluate if it is feasible to operate large,unmanned cargo ship17、s with human support from a ROC,i.e.,constrained autonomy(see Section 2.1),that can operate in international waters.In this study,the term cargo ship is used to include deep sea break-bulk and short sea container ships.A prerequisite for the study is that the ship is operating in international water18、s and can visit any port.Additionally,it is assumed that the unmanned cargo ship is a new build and without superstructure,and Norwegian regulations are considered when discussing national regulations.The feasibility is evaluated based on technical,regulatory,and commercial assessments.Moreover,to e19、valuate the feasibility of an unmanned cargo ship,the voyage is divided into different operational phases:At port,near port,coastal and deep sea.Next,the functions performed on board a cargo ship today is divided into different crew tasks:Navigation and control,propulsion system,communication,cargo 20、handling,and mooring.Lastly,the feasibility of performing each task autonomously is evaluated for each operational phase.The evaluation is based on input from the project partners and other available sources.The results of the feasibility study are summarized in Figure 1.The columns show the differe21、nt phases,and the rows show the different tasks(functions).The feasibility of a constrained autonomous cargo ship is evaluated from a technical(),regulatory(),and commercial(economic,environmental and social)point of view.The traffic lights indicate whether it is feasible or not to automate the give22、n task.A green light indicates that it is feasible today,a yellow light indicates a that it is feasible within the next 5 years,while a red light indicates that it is not feasible within the next 5 years.Figure 1:Summary of technical,regulatory,and commercial feasibility of unmanned cargo ship.Proje23、ct no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 6 of 70 As can been seen from Figure 1,there are some yellow and red lights,indicating that an unmanned cargo ship is not feasible today.For the at port phase,autonomous cargo handling is the most challenging.Automated mooring is possible and commer24、cially available in the market today.For the near port phase,navigation and control task is the most challenging w.r.t autonomy,where object detection and classification seem to be too immature.For the coastal phase,the navigational challenge from near port remains,but also the propulsion system can25、 be a challenge due to possible failures or maintenance needs.For deep sea,the main challenge is the propulsion system,which needs to be functioning without failures for the whole duration,which can be up to 1.5 months.Moreover,navigation should be easier in this phase as there is less traffic,but c26、ommunication with a ROC can be limited by coverage,bandwidth,and latency.However,this depends on what is needed to be communicated to a ROC in this phase,which is not yet determined.Taking the Norwegian regulations as an example of national regulations,the regulations are adapted to the use of unman27、ned ships.However,as there are no large,unmanned ships operating today,any approval of operation must be tested and evaluated for every operational concept.A test period demonstrating the performance of the system is required before any approval is given(for example,the autonomous ship Yara Birkelan28、d is given two years of test period).Thus,to get an approval for operating unmanned is rather time consuming.However,looking at the international regulations,there are still large hurdles to overcome before a ship can operate unmanned.From a commercial perspective it seems that the economic impacts 29、from an unmanned cargo ship are not clear,mostly because no unmanned ship of this size has yet been built.Uncertainties are,among other things,cost savings with removal of superstructure versus more expensive and redundant technology,operational cost of a ROC,and new alternative fuels and engine typ30、es which we do not currently have experience with.Environmental and social impacts,however,have mostly been considered positive.Environmental is positive because autonomy often goes hand in hand with energy efficiency measures and to possibility to increase cargo capacity if superstructure is remove31、d.Social impact is considered positive since the focus has been to remove people from hazardous operations and move officers on shore,as there is and will be a shortage of seafarers.This overall conclusion from the study shows that there are still some challenges to be solved before large cargo ship32、s can operated unmanned(under the given assumptions).However,for small and medium size vessels,unmanned operation with human support from a ROC can be feasible today or in near future within certain concept of operations(CONOPS),especially in national waters where there exist regulations for autonom33、ous ships.To operate an unmanned ship internationally,regulatory challenges related to e.g.IMO,can be solved by bilateral agreements between the countries involved.Moreover,even for a large cargo ship,some of the individual tasks can be automated today or in the near future with economic,environment34、al,and/or social benefits.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 7 of 70 Definitions The following terms related to autonomy are defined in the ISO/TS 23860:2022(ISO,2022).Uncrewed:Ship with no crew onboard.Note:Crew does not include passengers,special personnel etc.Unmanned:Ship wi35、th no humans onboard.Abbreviations Expressions and abbreviations Description AIS Automatic Identification System ANS Autonomous Navigation System ASM Application Specific Messages CAPEX Capital Expenditure CLTE Coastal Long-Term Evolution COLREG Convention on the International Regulations for Preven36、ting Collisions at Sea DFFAS Designing the Future of Full Autonomous Ship consortium DNV Det Norske Veritas EMSA European Maritime Safety Agency FSS Code Fire Safety Systems Code GHG Green House Gas GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System GPS Global Positioning System HiNAS Hyundai intelligent Navig37、ation Assistant System IALA International Association of Lighthouse Authorities IBC Code International Bulk Chemical Code ICG Code International Code of the Construction and Equipment of Ships Carrying Liquefied Gases in Bulk IMDG Code International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code IMO International Ma38、ritime Organization IMSBC Code International Maritime Solid Bulk Cargoes Code IMU Inertial Measurement Unit IR Infrared ISM Instrumentation,Scientific,and Medical bands LEO Low Earth Orbit LiDAR Light detection and ranging LL Convention International Convention on Load Lines LNG Liquefied Natural Ga39、s LOS Line of Sight MAiD Marine Autonomous Intelligent Docking MASS Marine Autonomous Surface Ships MBR Mobile Broadband Radio MGO Marine Gas Oil MRC Minimum Risk-Condition NCA Norwegian Coastal Administration NF Near Field NFAS Norwegian Forum for Autonomous Ships NMA Norwegian Maritime Authority P40、roject no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 8 of 70 OPEX Operational Expenditure ROC Remote Operation Centre RSE Regulatory scoping exercise SAR Convention International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue SD Standard Definition SFI Senter for Forskningsdrevet Innovasjon(Center for R41、esearch driven Innovation)SOLAS Safety Of Life At Sea STCW Convention International Convention on Standards of Training,Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers TOE Tonnage of Oil UNCLOS The United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea VDE VHF data exchange VDES VHF Data Exchange System VHF Very 42、High Frequency VLSFO Very low sulfur fuel oil VoiP Voice over Internet Protocol VOYEX Voyage Expenditure VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal Systems VTS Vessel Traffic Service WP Work Package Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 9 of 70 Project Background This report is a deliverabl43、e in work package 5 Sustainable Operations in SFI Autoship.The main objective of SFI AutoShip is to leverage on the competencies of the complete Norwegian maritime cluster and consolidate Norway as a leading global actor within autonomous ships.The project is divided into eight work packages(WPs),as44、 shown in Figure 2.Figure 2:SFI Autoship project structure.The objective of the use cases is to demonstrate the applicability and value-adding potential of research and innovation results from the center and disclose new problems for further research.There are four use cases(as seen in Figure 2),and45、 this document will focus on use case 1:Deep sea bulk shipping and use case 2:Short sea container shipping.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 10 of 70 1 Introduction With increasing pressure to reduce the environmental footprint,increase safety,and high competition on cost,the m46、aritime industry has started to investigate autonomous ships as an alternative to conventional ships.By automating the sailing of a ship,one can remove the difference between bad captains,e.g.unexperienced captains sailing without taking into consideration the ship and weather,and good captains that47、 optimize the route based on experience.Thus,automated navigation can reduce the environmental footprint.For ships with periodically unmanned functions(e.g.bridge)the officer on watch gets reduced workload,making it easier to comply with rest hour regulations,making time for other tasks,and can redu48、ce the crew cost.As the crew cost constitutes about half of the operational expenditure(OPEX),a lot can be saved by reducing the manning.Moreover,for unmanned ships,crew related superstructure on the ship,such as bridge and hotel areas,can be removed,making the ship cheaper to build and enabling the49、 ship to be smaller and/or transport more cargo.However,unmanned ships may introduce requirements on redundant systems that will increase the cost.Autonomous cargo handling will increase the safety by removing people from the cargo handling operations.For a ship sailing autonomously,the navigation i50、s typically less challenging due to low traffic density and reduced grounding risk in deep sea operations.The downside of autonomous deep sea operations is that land-based infrastructure,e.g.for communication and observation,is not available.For short sea operations,land-based infrastructure may be 51、available for the whole voyage,which makes it easier to operate remotely and transmit and receive data on the ship.Autonomous ships have been in the spotlight for a while and now there are some commercial initiatives that aims to operate autonomous ships,such as the autonomous container ship YARA Bi52、rkeland1,ASKOs autonomous vessels2,and the autonomous vessel Mayflower3.However,these ships are not operating constrained autonomously today(i.e.,without humans onboard but with human assistance).A constrained autonomous ship is defined as follows(Jan Rdseth&Nordahl,2017):Constrained autonomous:The 53、ship can operate fully automatic in most situations and has a predefined selection of options for solving commonly encountered problems,e.g.collision avoidance.It has defined limits to the options it can use to solve problems,e.g.maximum deviation from planned track or arrival time.It will call on h54、uman operators to intervene if the problems cannot be solved within these constraints.The SCC or bridge personnel continuously supervises the operations and will take immediate control when requested to by the system.Otherwise,the system will be expected to operate safely by itself.More on different55、 levels of autonomy is described in Section 2.1.The objective of this feasibility study is to establish an understanding on whether it is feasible to introduce and operate constrained autonomous ships in the short sea and deep sea segment.Further,this study will investigate possible technical,regula56、tory,and commercial obstacles related to constrained autonomous short sea container ships and deep sea bulk ships.The outcome and results of this study will be used as input to further research in SFI Autoship.1 https:/ https:/ https:/ no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 11 of 70 Figure 57、3:An unmanned bulk ship.Courtesy:Kongsberg Maritime.1.1 Assumptions 1)In this report,by cargo ship is meant container ship and bulk ship.2)With bulk ship is mean only break bulk ship in this report.3)It is assumed that the cargo ship operates in international waters.4)In this report some crew tasks 58、related to the operation of a cargo ship are evaluated.However,the list of tasks is not complete,but limited to the tasks shown in Figure 6.5)Safety is not directly considered in this report,but partly covered in regulatory chapter.6)In the regulatory feasibility,the Norwegian regulations are consid59、ered when operating in national waters.7)This report does not focus on the autonomous systems handling of sensor deviations and failures.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 12 of 70 2 Background This chapter describes the background information used in this report.2.1 Levels of a60、utonomy When talking about autonomy on a ship level,it is useful to define what is meant my autonomy in the context of this report.Therefore,the levels of autonomy defined by NFAS serve as a relevant reference(Jan Rdseth&Nordahl,2017):Decision support:This corresponds to todays and tomorrows advance61、d ship types with relatively advanced anti-collision radars(ARPA),electronic chart systems and common automation systems like autopilot or track pilots.The crew is still in direct command of ship operations and continuously supervises all operations.This level normally corresponds to no autonomy.Aut62、omatic:The ship has more advanced automation systems that can complete certain demanding operations without human interaction,e.g.dynamic positioning or automatic berthing.The operation follows a pre-programmed sequence and will request human intervention if any unexpected events occur or when the o63、peration completes.The shore control centre(SCC)or the bridge crew is always available to intervene and initiate remote or direct control when needed.Constrained autonomous:The ship can operate fully automatic in most situations and has a predefined selection of options for solving commonly encounte64、red problems,e.g.collision avoidance.It has defined limits to the options it can use to solve problems,e.g.maximum deviation from planned track or arrival time.It will call on human operators to intervene if the problems cannot be solved within these constraints.The SCC or bridge personnel continuou65、sly supervises the operations and will take immediate control when requested to by the system.Otherwise,the system will be expected to operate safely by itself.Fully autonomous:The ship handles all situations by itself.This implies that one will not have an SCC or any bridge personnel at all.This ma66、y be a realistic alternative for operations over short distances and in very controlled environments.However,and in a shorter time perspective,this is an unlikely scenario as it implies very high complexity in ship systems and correspondingly high risks for malfunctions and loss of system.In these d67、efinitions the use of SCC correspond to what is called Remote Operation Center(ROC)in this report.2.2 Communication Coverage The coverage of the communication systems is divided in the categories listed in Table 1.Table 1:Categories of coverage for communication systems(Hagaseth&Rdseth,2021).Class D68、escription NF Near field,on the order of 1 to some 100 meters LOS Line of sight,approximately 10-20 km A0 Coverage in some coastal areas A1 General coverage in coastal areas A2 Regional sea coverage A3 Global coverage,except latitudes 70 A4 True global coverage Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 69、A-110 Version 1.0 13 of 70 2.3 Autonomous Ship Initiatives There are several ongoing projects for autonomous ships today.Below is a list with some initiatives.Yara Birkeland.Aims to be the worlds first fully electric and autonomous container vessel and is developed by Yara and Kongsberg4.ASKO ferrie70、s.ASKO Maritime has ordered 2 fully electric autonomous ro-ro(roll-on/roll-off)cargo ferries to carry truck trailers across the Oslo Fjord5.Milliampere.Small autonomous passenger ferry that is being tested in Trondheim.Zeabus.Small autonomous passenger ferry to be used in urban areas.Fugro Blue Shad71、ow.A small,uncrewed surface vessel for hydrographic and geophysical surveys 6.Reach Remote.Developing uncrewed surface vessel for survey,inspection,and light repair 7.Ocean Infinity.Has an uncrewed offshore ship and remote control centers,in addition to some smaller uncrewed vehicles 8.DFFAS.The MEG72、URI2040 project Designing the Future of Full Autonomous Ship(DFFAS)is working to develop solutions for the fully autonomous ships of the future and performed a 790km sea trial between Tokyo Bay and Ise Bay demonstrating the latest technology related to autonomous route planning,collision avoidance a73、nd remote fleet operation centre(including remote emergency response system)with the containership Suzaku in February 2022.A documentary of the effort has been released9.The system has been tested for offshore maneuvering,coastal navigation,and bay navigation.This included navigation in congested se74、a areas,for instance the ship had to pass the Tokyo Bay where roughly 500 ships pass daily(The Nippon Foundation,2021).Avikus.Another worlds first autonomous ship demonstration was announced recently by South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries(HHI)and its autonomous navigation subsidiary Av75、ikus10.The companies claim the cargo ship Prism Courage,an ultra-large liquid natural gas tanker operated by SK Shipping,completed the first(partly)autonomous transoceanic journey in a large merchant ship in May 202211.Other efforts to develop autonomous ships for commercial use are led by Samsung H76、eavy Industries Co12 and China13.Revolt.Unmanned short sea vessel concept by DNV14.Mayflower.Autonomous Ship developed by main partners ProMare and IBM that will use an AI captain to cross the Atlantic Ocean completely autonomously15.4 https:/ https:/ 6 https:/ 7 https:/reachsubsea.no/reach-remote-p77、roject-update/8 https:/ https:/ 10 https:/ https:/www.offshore-energy.biz/hyundai-heavy-conducts-worlds-first-transoceanic-voyage-of-lng-carrier-on-autonomous-navigation/12 Samsung Autonomous Ship(SAS):https:/ 13 https:/maritime- 14 DNV ReVolt project website:https:/ Mayflower Autonomous Ship Webpag78、e:https:/ no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 14 of 70 3 Methodology To evaluate the feasibility of a constrained autonomous cargo ship,the voyage is divided in different operation phases,see Section 3.1.Next,the functions performed on board a cargo ship today is divided in different cre79、w tasks,see Section 3.2.Lastly,the feasibility to perform each task constrained autonomously is evaluated for each operation phase as described in Section 3.3.The evaluation is based on input from the project partners and other available sources.3.1 Operational Phases The different operational phase80、s of a cargo ship are illustrated in Figure 4.There are four phases including at port,near port,coastal,and deep sea.Figure 4:Operational phases for a deep sea bulk ship.At port The at port operational phase is defined as the phase where the ship is stationary at a port.Typical tasks performed in th81、is phase includes mooring of the vessel and handling the cargo.The cargo handling includes on-loading and off-loading and securing cargo.Near port Near port is defined as the phase where the ship is approaching or leaving a port.In this phase the ship is typically moving slowly,e.g.when docking,and 82、there may be several vessels and leisure activities in the area.Coastal Coastal is defined as the phase where the ship is operating in a congested traffic area or confined waters.In this phase,navigating the vessel may be a challenging task.Deep sea Deep sea is considered as the phase where a ship i83、s operating in open sea,typically with a low traffic density and little maneuvering,as the ship typically follows a straight route.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 15 of 70 3.2 Crew tasks In order to operate a vessel unmanned,the automation must be able to do the same tasks an84、d functions as the crew do today.To identify the obstacles for operating a vessel unmanned,we start by looking into the tasks performed by crew on board cargo ships today in addition to remote control.This includes:1.Navigation and control:Navigation is the act of getting a vessel from one location 85、to another.This is typically performed at the bridge of the vessel and includes observing the surroundings to get a situational awareness,planning the route to travel based on this situational awareness,and steering and controlling the vessel according to the desired route.2.Power and Propulsion:The86、 crew is responsible to monitor,maintain,and repair the propulsion and support systems(Nedcon Maritime,2013).The crew is also responsible for other systems,such as power generation,steering,lighting,air conditioning,and electrical power.Maintenance:A lot of maintenance is done by the crew every day.87、3.Communication:Today,the crew perform different types of communication at the ship.This includes ship-ship communication,i.e.,communication with other ships for instance to avoid possible conflicts,and ship-shore communication,e.g,with a Vessel Traffic Service(VTS)or a port authority.In the future,88、more data would need to be communicated for a ship to operate safely unmanned.Communication with agents(from the port)and planning of the next port call(need to enter correct terminal and have an available berth etc),discussing timing,just-in-time,tide water,labor for cargo operations,contact with g89、overnments(customs)etc.For a constrained autonomous ship,it will need human assistance by humans in an ROC.Communication between the ship and ROC is also included in this task.4.Mooring:When the ship has reached its destination,it needs to be moored before it can start off-loading the cargo.The moor90、ing typically includes ropes and mooring lines to secure the vessel to the quay.The mooring task does not include any maneuvering to the dock(docking)and assumes that the ship is at the dock when this task starts.5.Cargo handling:The cargo handling includes on-loading and off-loading(in most cases b91、y the means of a crane),preparing dunnage,cargo monitoring,and securing cargo in the hold.6.Other o Safety:This must be considered in all the other mentioned tasks as well.Examples:distress signals where the vessel must assist as required,evacuation of people and/or cargo.o Firefighting:Handling fir92、e hoses,operating fire extinguishers(e.g.CO2 and water mists controlled by the crew),closing fire doors,mustering etc.E.g.investigating where the source of fire is and close the correct quick closing valves.o Ballast&bilge:To operate ballast,bilge,cargo and fuel pumps.Ballasting is mainly done at th93、e terminal,during cargo handling.Ballast exchange at sea is only done if there is a problem with the Ballast Water Treatment System due to a technical failure or unfavorable environmental conditions(e.g.,dirty ballast water).The ballast water is not allowed to be discharged if the water is untreated94、 or does not contain the same local fauna(e.g.when going from San Diego to Los Angeles).o Maintenance:Maintenance is not only performed related to the propulsion system,but to the whole ship.E.g.,hull,hatch covers,deck,cranes,lights for navigation,various electrical systems,and safety equipment.o Ac95、cess to the ship:Crew must be able to board the ship to perform different tasks,such as cargo handling.To board the ship,a gangway or other equipment must be set up safely.o Administrative:Bill of lading,legal responsibility for cargo,customs/security/ISPS o Other tasks are also performed related to96、 the operation of a cargo ship but is not included here.In this study,the tasks under other will not be evaluated to limit the scope.The evaluation will include tasks 1-5 as illustrated in Figure 5.However,a brief discussion of the other task will be included.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-97、110 Version 1.0 16 of 70 Figure 5:Illustration of crew tasks.3.3 Assessments The feasibility of a constrained autonomous cargo ship is evaluated from a technical(),regulatory(),and commercial()viewpoint.Moreover,each of the crew tasks are evaluated for each of the operational phases that are applica98、ble.For instance,the mooring task is only applicable for at port operation phase.To do the assessment,a traffic light model is used,where each color indicates the feasibility the tasks for each operation phase.The different colors are defined as follows:Feasible today Not feasible today,but within t99、he next 5 years Not feasible or unrealistic,in the next 5 years Not applicable More specific definitions for the traffic lights are defined for technical(Chapter 5),regulatory(Chapter 6),and commercial(Chapter 7).The feasibility will be summarized as illustrated in Figure 6,but here without colors.F100、igure 6:Example figure illustrating a summary of the technical,regulatory,and commercial feasibility.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 17 of 70 4 Use Cases This report covers the two use cases deep sea bulk ship and short sea container ship.This chapter describes the prerequisi101、tes for these use cases.4.1 Deep sea Bulk Ship Operations Before starting the feasibility study on unmanned deep sea bulk shipping,it is paramount to understand how the ships are operated.In this study we use the Grieg Star bulk ship Star Lysefjord as an example case,see Figure 7.This is an L-class 102、break bulk ship with the following characteristics16:Deadweight:50 728 mt LOA:204.4 m Beam:32.26 m Draft:12,7 m Gross reg.tons:37 447 mt Cranes:4 x 75 mt Jib,combinable to 150 mt One typical trade for Grieg Star bulk ships is from Europe to the USA.This trade uses a couple of days between ports in E103、urope,about two weeks to cross the Atlantic,and a few days between ports in the USA.Another trade is from Chile to China,which takes one and a half month.In the south of Chile conventional satellite communication has bad coverage and availability.In this trade the bulk ship operates several days in 104、areas where communication availability and bandwidth are limited.4.1.1 Propulsion The use case bulk ship is equipped with a main propeller in addition to a bow thruster and a flap rudder.A deep sea bulk ship typically uses a diesel engine for propulsion with very low sulfur fuel oil(VLSFO)where the 105、regulations require maximum 0.5%Sulphur content,while the cleaner fuel Marine Gas Oil(MGO)is used where maximum 0.1%Sulphur is required.Each ship can experience about two outages annually.The most common maintenance performed on these ships are caused by clogged separators and filters.With the use o106、f VLSFO as fuel,maintenance must be performed every 4th-8th hour in worst case.With other cleaner fuel,there is less clogging and thus less maintenance that needs to be performed.4.1.2 Docking,mooring and cargo handling These bulk ships can have up to four cranes on board the vessel.Each crane can c107、arry up to 75 mt with an outreach of 26 m.Mooring typically takes 1-2 hours.The ships mainly use tugboats to assist when docking today,but has bow thruster and flap rudder to reduce the amount of tugs needed.16 https:/ 7:Star Lysefjord.Courtesy:Wolfgang Plapp.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-108、110 Version 1.0 18 of 70 4.2 Short sea Container Ship Before starting the feasibility study on unmanned short sea container ship,it is paramount to understand how the ships are operated.In this study we use the container ship NCL Avery as an example case,see Figure 8.The ship has the following chara109、cteristics17:Deadweight:11206 mt LOA:134.4 m Beam:22.74 m Draft:8.8 m Gross tons:9990 mt Cranes:2 x 45 mt Capacity:886 TEU The NCL container ships mostly have trades out from Rotterdam,Hamburg and Bremerhaven and along the Norwegian coastline up to Finnsnes(sometimes Troms).A roundtrip from Rotterda110、m to Orkanger takes about one week and similarly for Finnsnes(Troms)it takes about two weeks.These numbers include time spent on cargo handling.In these trades the ships operate in the coastal and deep sea phases and cross Norwegian,Dutch,German,and international waters.The ships mainly dock by them111、selves without the use of tugboats but may need docking assistance when the weather is rough.All the ships have certified pilots,but an external pilot is required in the Port of Rotterdam.17 https:/ 8:NCL Avery.Courtesy:NCL.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 19 of 70 5 Technical112、 Feasibility This chapter will establish if constrained autonomy is technically feasible for a deep sea break bulk ship and a short sea container ship(see Section 2.1 for levels of autonomy).The technical feasibility will be evaluated for each of the tasks navigation and control,propulsion system,ca113、rgo handling,mooring,communication,and ROC(see Section 3.2).Moreover,each task is evaluated for each of the defined operation phases at port,near port,coastal,and deep sea(see Section Operational Phases3.1).For each task we have defined different high level acceptance criteria to evaluate whether it114、 is technically feasible or not.If not specified otherwise,the acceptance criteria are the same for both the bulk ship and the container ship use cases.The definition of the traffic lights for the technical feasibility is described in Table 2.The content of this chapter is based on inputs from diffe115、rent partners in the SFI Autoship including Grieg Star,Maritime Robotics,Massterly,SINTEF Ocean,and SINTEF Digital.Table 2:Definition of traffic lights for technical feasibility.Satisfies all acceptance criteria today Some acceptance criteria are not satisfied today but expected within 5 years.Most 116、acceptance criteria are not satisfied today and is not expected within the next 5 years.Not applicable 5.1 Navigation and Control To navigate a vessel,one needs to gain situational awareness,i.e.,observe,detect,and classify objects in the surroundings of the vessel,plan the path depending on these s117、urroundings and according to the maritime rules,and steer the vessel according to the planned route while ensuring the safety of the ship,crew,and cargo.To gain situational awareness one needs to observe and detect the surroundings of the vessel.This includes to observe and detect objects surroundin118、g the vessel,e.g.other vessels,kayaks,and shore.Additionally,the weather conditions should be observed to gain a complete situational awareness.Historically,a situational awareness around the vessel has been gained by one or more people looking at the surroundings.Today,many vessels are equipped wit119、h several sensors used to observe and detect the surroundings and the motions of its own vessel.This may include Global Navigation Satellite System(GNSS),radar,lidar,compass,IMU,camera,speed log,echo sounder,and weather sensors.A path planner should not only try to avoid collisions but also try to f120、ind the optimal path for the ship.The path to be sailed must be planned based on the gained situational awareness and according to maritime rules considering the maneuverability of the vessel.Existing solutions There exist several solutions for automated navigation and control today,see examples bel121、ow:Sea Machines.Sea Machines offers the autonomous self-piloting system SM300 that fuses data from radar,differential GPS,AIS,camera,and depth sounder(Sea Machines,2022).The SM300 includes obstacle detection and classification and predicts their course and uses this to reroute the vessel if needed w122、hile complying with the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea(COLREG).The SM300 has been tested on a tugboat sailing around Denmark where 97%of the 1000+mile journey was sailed constrained autonomously including 31 collision avoidance Project no.302005882 Repor123、t No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 20 of 70 and traffic separation maneuvers18.The tugboat was remotely commanded from Boston where they had access to the state of the vessel,situational awareness of the surroundings,real-time vessel-borne audio,and video from many streaming cameras.Avikus.Avikus develop124、s the navigation assistant system Hyundai intelligent Navigation Assistant System(HiNAS)(Avikus,2022).HiNAS fuses data from radar,ais and camera and uses AI to automatically detects objects.The fused sensor data helps the captain gain situational awareness.The solution also includes algorithms for c125、ollision avoidance and grounding alarms to assist the navigation.Avikus has conducted a transoceanic voyage of a large 300 m LNG carrier using HiNAS19.DFFAS20.The autonomous navigation is based on cameras and 3 types of radars capturing 3 different frequency bands,including mm-wave radar to detect s126、mall targets.The collision detection and avoidance are performed by the Advanced Routing Simulation and Planning unit that bases the decision-making on a Preference model that captures the navigational preferences of the ships captains in an attempt to generate the most appropriate manoeuvre for eac127、h situation based on extensive data of past voyages9.The navigation system has been tested on a 95 m container ship for 800 km in coastal areas of Japan.Orca AI.Orca AI has developed a collision avoidance system using high resolution and thermal cameras(Orca AI,2022).The collision avoidance system c128、an also integrate other existing sensors on the vessel.Kongsberg.Kongsberg can detect,classify,and observe objects,obstacles,vessels,and shoreline21.For instance,the navigation and autonomous operations of YARA Birkeland is delivered by Kongsberg and will be supported by several proximity sensors,in129、cluding a radar,a light detection and ranging(LIDAR)device,an automatic identification system(AIS),a camera system and an infrared(IR)camera22.The systems also include object detection and collision avoidance.Captain AI.Another example is Captain AI that has developed a navigation system that can pl130、an paths in real-time and steer the vessel accordingly.The situational awareness is based on object detection and classification from fusing radar,camera,GPS,sonar,and AIS.This has been tested with a patrol vessel in the Port of Rotterdam23.A general note for all these solutions is that details of w131、hat they include and their performance is lacking.The autonomous navigation systems are summarized in Table 3.Table 3:Autonomous navigation systems.Solution Data Algorithm Tested(ship,area)Sea Machines Radar,differential GPS,AIS,camera,and depth sounder.Obstacle detection and classification,path pla132、nning.Tugboat,coastal area.Avikus Radar,ais,and camera.Object detection,collision avoidance and grounding alarms Large tanker,deep sea.18 https:/ https:/ 20 DFFAS=Designing the Future of Full Autonomous Ship consortium.21 https:/ https:/ https:/ no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 21 of 133、70 DFFAS Cameras and 3 types of radars capturing 3 different frequency bands,including mm-wave radar to detect small targets.Object detection,collision detection and avoidance,path planning Container ship,coastal.Orca AI Cameras Collision avoidance Unknown Kongsberg Cameras,radar,lidar,AIS,GNSS.Obje134、ct detections and classification,collision avoidance Container ship and ferries,coastal Captain AI Radar,camera,GPS,sonar,and AIS Path planning Patrol vessel,near port.The following subsections will investigate the feasibility of constrained autonomous navigation during the operation phases defined 135、in Chapter 3,i.e.,near port,coastal,and deep sea.Notice that the phase at port is not relevant for the navigation and control task.For the navigation and control task,the challenges related to handling the navigation for deep sea bulk ships and short sea container ships are assumed to be similar,sin136、ce the use case bulk and container ships are both large vessels that sail slowly(see Chapter 4).When bulk and container ships are evaluated together,the term cargo ship is used to referrer to both.However,for the docking operation,there is a large difference between the two ships,as the deep sea bul137、k ship typically needs to be assisted with tugboats to perform the docking,while the short sea container ship typically docks by itself.5.1.1 Near Port Acceptance Criteria:1)The vessel can handle navigation in a congested area with ships and leisure activities but might need human assistance if the 138、traffic picture is too complex or in case of unforeseen events.2)The vessel can dock by itself without assistance from tugboats.Table 3 shows that there exist several solutions in the market for autonomous navigation that include situational awareness and path planning,where some of these have been 139、tested for large cargo ships.However,based on the information available from the system providers,it is unclear if the solutions satisfy Acceptance Criteria 1,i.e.,complex navigation near port.Based on interviews with technical partners in the project,the biggest challenge for autonomous navigation 140、is the object classification.For instance,when an object is detected,it is vital for the navigation system to know what the object is(e.g.a bulk ship,kayak or tugboat)and how the object is moving.In order to get accurate object classification,a lot of data is needed to train the machine learning alg141、orithms.Today,there is a lack of enough quality data to develop highly accurate object detection algorithms.Thus,Acceptance Criteria 1 is not fully satisfied for both uses cases(bulk and container ship).When a vessel approaches a port,it must perform docking,i.e.,sails from the fairway area to a doc142、k where it stops.Un-docking is performed when the vessel sails from the dock to the fairway.To satisfy Acceptance Criteria 2,the ship must dock autonomously.Autonomous docking has been demonstrated by some actors.For instance,MAiD(Marine Autonomous Intelligent Docking)Systems claims to have develope143、d and tested an autonomous docking system for marine vessels that can accurately control the velocity of the vessel and calculate a safe path to the selected docking location(MAiD Systems,2022).According to MAiD,the autodocking system can be used for a variety of vessels,including cargo and containe144、r ships,but there is no information regarding actual usage of this system.Additionally,the DFFAS(Designing the Future of Full Autonomous Ship)has performed autonomous docking maneuvering for a 95 m container ship(NYK Line,Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 22 of 70 2022).Another145、 provider is Kongsberg Maritime that offers automatic docking for ferries(Kongsberg Maritime,2022).This system is used on the Bast Fosen ferry today.However,there is limited information on the performance of these docking systems,which makes it uncertain if there are operational limits to the dockin146、g systems,e.g.,weather limitations.Short sea container ship For a container ship,the docking is typically done without assistance from tugboats,meaning that the ship has sufficient actuation to perform docking on its own.However,due to the uncertainty of the performance of the autodocking systems,Ac147、ceptance Criteria 2 is not fully satisfied.Since both Acceptance Criteria 1 and Acceptance Criteria 2 are not fully satisfied today for short sea container ship,but expected to be satisfied within the 5 years,a yellow light is given.Deep sea bulk ship As described in Section 4.1,the use case bulk sh148、ip is normally assisted by tugboats to perform docking today.However,a newbuild ship can be designed to be fully actuated,making it easier to dock by itself.Nevertheless,a new ship with full actuation will come with an additional cost compared to using an existing ship.As mentioned for short sea con149、tainer ship,the performance of todays autodocking systems are uncertain.To fully satisfy Acceptance Criteria 2,the ship must be able to dock by itself at any port in the world,which is not guaranteed for todays autodocking systems.Since both Acceptance Criteria 1 and Acceptance Criteria 2 are not fu150、lly satisfied for a deep sea bulk ship in near port,but expected to be satisfied within the 5 years,a yellow light is given.5.1.2 Coastal Acceptance Criteria 3)The vessel can handle navigation in a congested traffic area but might need human assistance if the traffic picture is too complex or in cas151、e of unforeseen events.For instance,if the traffic picture is complex,a human operator may need to communicate with nearby vessels and decide on who is doing what.4)Can navigate in confined waters without physical pilotage on board.a.Avoid groundings and keep a safe distance from land.As mentioned a152、t the beginning of Section 5.1,navigating the use case bulk and container ships are assumed similar since they are both large and slow vessels.Thus,for the coastal operational phase,both use cases are evaluated together.In the coastal operational phase,the navigation system must be able to handle na153、vigation in a congested traffic area where the COLREGs are unambiguous to satisfy Acceptance Criteria 4.As for the near port navigation,the challenge is to have accurate object classifications,which is not in place today.Thus,Acceptance Criteria 4 is not fully satisfied.To safely guide a vessel into154、 or out of a port or navigating in a hazardous area,a pilot with local knowledge is used(International Maritime Organization,2022).The pilot has local knowledge and can effectively communicate with shore.Today,this requires a person to board the vessel to guide it.As outlined in(Porathe,2022),this b155、ecomes an issue for unmanned vessels,as the pilot has nowhere to go.Porathe suggest a MASS routing service based on an automatic local information center currently researched in the IMAT project24 as a possible solution to this issue.In other words,a digital pilotage service providing this 24 https:156、/www.sintef.no/projectweb/imat/Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 23 of 70 local knowledge and expertise.However,to the authors knowledge,solutions to handle the pilotage for autonomous ships has not been demonstrated yet.For a constrained autonomous ship,the ship can have human157、 assistance from an operator in an ROC.Assuming that the ROC operator is a certified pilot for the area in question,Acceptance Criteria 5 can be satisfied.However,this is a topic for further research.For the coastal operation phase,Acceptance Criteria 5 can be satisfied(under the given assumptions),158、but Acceptance Criteria 4 is not fully satisfied today due to the object classification challenge.Thus,orange light is given in the traffic light model.5.1.3 Deep Sea Acceptance Criteria 5)Can navigate in open sea with low traffic density without human support for a long period of time.As mentioned,159、navigating the use case bulk and container ships are assumed similar since they are both large and slow vessels.Thus,for the deep sea operational phase,both use cases are evaluated together.In deep sea,the communication coverage and availability are typically poor.Additionally,if communication is av160、ailable,the performance(e.g.bandwidth and latency)is often limited.This means that the ship needs to operate without human support for some periods of time,depending on the availability.As the deep sea operational phase is characterized by little traffic and open sea,the navigational challenge shoul161、d be easier.As for the other operational phases,accurate object classification is a challenge to gain situational awareness.However,since there are less objects to detect deep sea,this challenge might not be so predominant for this phase.Assuming that the object classification is correct,planning th162、e route and steering the vessel should in this phase be a feasible task.In conclusion,Acceptance Criteria 6 for deep sea is not fully satisfied due to the limitation of todays object classification.Hence,a yellow light is given for deep sea for both bulk ship and short sea container ship(see Figure 163、9).5.1.4 Conclusion Figure 9 shows the conclusions of the technical feasibility of constrained autonomous navigation and control for deep sea bulk ships and short sea container ships.Navigation and control is not applicable when the ship is at port,but a yellow light for the other phases due to the 164、limitations of todays object detection and automated docking.Figure 9:Technical feasibility for navigation and control for an unmanned cargo ship.5.2 Power and Propulsion Assuming that the ship is moored while at port,this operational phase is not applicable for this task.Acceptance Criteria 1)Condi165、tion monitoring and fault prediction is possible.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 24 of 70 Acceptance Criteria 1 is considered independent of the different operational phases.Regarding Acceptance Criteria 1,there exists solutions for condition monitoring e.g.,Kongsberg Maritim166、e condition monitoring solution25 for engines,generators,compressors,thrusters,and pumps.Additionally,there are some solutions for fault prediction and research on this subject.For instance,Kongsbergs Health Management service26 that claims to reduce unplanned maintenance and avoid disruption,using 167、the information available from the condition monitoring solution.However,there is a lack of information on the performance of the condition monitoring and fault prediction systems.Another example of this,is the DFFAS trial simulating a fully autonomous operation of a container ship,where the fleet o168、peration center had functions for engine-abnormality prediction to support the operation of a fully autonomous ship from shore(NYK Line,2022).However,as stated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry27,One of the biggest issues of a fully automated vessel is fault prediction,and enhanced engine monitoring tech169、nologies that monitor motor conditions are being developed and tested as well.Moreover,the existing condition monitoring systems focus on the larger components,while smaller sub systems connected to the propulsion system,such as a leakage on a pipe,are not covered by these systems.As such,condition 170、monitoring and fault prediction has some solutions,but as the performance and coverage of systems is uncertain,Acceptance Criteria 1 partially satisfied today.In addition to being able to monitor and predict faults for the propulsion system(Acceptance Criteria 1),the propulsion system must be able t171、o operate without downtime or need for maintenance if the task is going to be performed without human intervention.If a ship can operate without downtime or maintenance depends on the sailing time for the ship between ports.To evaluate if this is feasible,we define different acceptance criteria depe172、nding on the expected operational time windows for the different phases.5.2.1 Near Port Acceptance Criteria 2)Can operate without downtime or need for maintenance for up 2 hours.As described in Section 4.1,deep sea bulk ships are typically equipped with a diesel engine using VLSFO.Using this propuls173、ion system and fuel,the ships typically experience two outages annually,but need maintenance performed about every 4-8th hour due to clogged separators and filters at the worst.Since the worst-case maintenance need is less frequent than 2 hours,Acceptance Criteria 2 is satisfied,giving a green light174、(see Figure 10).5.2.2 Coastal Acceptance Criteria 3)Can operate without downtime or need for maintenance for less than a week.As mentioned in the near port phase,maintenance is needed every 4-8th hour in worst case using typical propulsion system for a large cargo ship today.This means that Acceptan175、ce Criteria 3 is not satisfied today,as the ship cannot operate without intervention for a week.However,this is a conservative evaluation based on current propulsion systems and the economic fuel VSLFO which has higher need for maintenance compared to cleaner fuels which are more expensive.The need 176、for a propulsion system without downtime on a voyage,in addition to the focus on more environmentally friendly ships,creates a need to look at other 25 https:/ https:/ https:/ Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 25 of 70 propulsion systems and energy sources.To the authors knowle177、dge,there is not an easily available overview of uptime and maintenance needs for the different propulsion systems and energy sources.For some shorter voyages in the coastal phase,batteries may be used as the energy source,which is expected to operate without much downtime or need for maintenance.Co178、nsidering the expected development of alternative propulsion systems and energy sources in near future,a yellow light is given for the task propulsion system in the coastal phase(see Figure 10).Different propulsion systems and energy sources will be further discussed in the commercial feasibility,se179、e Chapter 7.5.2.3 Deep Sea Acceptance Criteria 4)Can operate without downtime or need for maintenance for more than a week.Like the other operation phases,considering a large cargo ship that uses a diesel engine running on VSLFO,maintenance may be needed every 4-8th hour.This means that Acceptance C180、riteria 4 is not satisfied with the propulsion system and fuel typically used today,as the system would be required to operate for more than a week without intervention.As mentioned in Section 5.2.2,an overview of expected uptime and maintenance related to different propulsion systems and energy sou181、rces are not easily available today(to the authors knowledge).In the future,Acceptance Criteria 4 may be satisfied using other propulsion systems and energy sources,but this is not expected to happen in the next five years.As such,a red light is given to the task propulsion system for the deep sea p182、hase(see Figure 10).5.2.4 Conclusion Figure 10 shows the conclusions for technical feasibility of constrained autonomous propulsion system for the different operational phases.Figure 10:Technical feasibility of propulsion system for an unmanned cargo ship.Based on this,the feasibility for the use ca183、se ships,i.e.,deep sea bulk ships and short sea container ships,are evaluated in the following subsections.5.2.4.1 Deep sea bulk ship As described in Section 4.1,a deep sea bulk ship operates different routes and can have sailing times up to 1.5 months.This means that a constrained autonomous bulk s184、hip must be able to operate for 1.5 months without failures that cause downtime.Assuming that all voyages of a deep sea bulk ship involve the operational phase deep sea,which has been given a yellow light(see Figure 11),unmanned propulsion system is not feasible for a deep sea bulk ship today.5.2.4.185、2 Short sea container ship A short sea container ship can operate many different routes with varying length and sailing time.As described in see Section 4.2,the use case container ship can have voyages up to two days sailing time between ports operating in the coastal phase.For short sea container s186、hips with voyages up to two weeks,unmanned propulsion system is not feasible today as deep sea is given a red light(see Figure 11).However,for shorter voyages of less than a week(coastal),this is considered feasible within the next five years.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 2187、6 of 70 5.3 Communication A ship must communicate with other vessel(ship-ship communication)and with ports,authorities(ship-shore communication).Additionally,a constrained autonomous ship(see Section 2.1 for definition)may need human assistance either from crew onboard or from an ROC.Since human ass188、istance from crew onboard is the convention today,this will not be covered in this section.However,advances in autonomous system can enable reduced manning onboard the ship,which will require new technologies and solutions.This is discussed in Section 5.6.Human assistance from an ROC on the other ha189、nd,is currently under development for some autonomous ship initiatives,where there are still some challenges that needs to be investigated.Although many systems and technologies are required to operate a ROC,this section will focus on the communication requirements for a ROC.Communication with other190、 ships,ports and authorities is typically performed using voice communication system such as Very High Frequency(VHF)radio.It is possible to digitalize the VHF communication,e.g.by using Voice over Internet Protocol(VoIP),but this still requires a human operator to be ready to answer at all times,e.191、g.in an ROC.Sometimes,ships communicate with each other by voice communication to resolve traffic challenges and the operators agree on who takes what action.This can be solved by always having an ROC operator ready to communicate and take control of the unmanned vessel.Another alternative is to exc192、hange the route between ships.However,this requires that route exchange systems are installed on all ships,not only the autonomous ships.Furthermore,for this to work without further voice communication,the COLREGs needs to be explicit on how to behave in any situation and not include room for interp193、retation.Some actors are looking into route exchange,but this is not expected to be on alle vessel in the near future.Thus,a human operator,either on the bridge or in an ROC must be present to handle voice communication for an autonomous ship.For an unmanned vessel,the voice communication must be tr194、ansferred from the vessel to an ROC where humans can respond.For remote operation of a vessel,lots of data needs to be transferred from the vessel to the ROC.For instance,this may include sensor data from the vessel(both internal and external),such as radar,camera,and status of engines and mechanica195、l parts in addition to control commands need to be sent to the vessel in order to remotely control the vessel and voice communication.Exactly what data needs to be communicated between an autonomous vessel and an ROC are not certain at the moment.However,what is certain is that remote operation requ196、ires a reliable and safe communication system with sufficient bandwidth and latency.Communication performance differs depending on where the ship is.The need for human assistance can also differ based on the operational phase of the ship.For instance,near port operation may require more human assist197、ance due to the navigational challenges compared to deep sea operation.Table 4 gives a summary of some common digital communication systems that can be used for maritime operations.This includes VHF Digital Exchange Systems(VDES)(IALA,2018),Mobile Data Services(HBR radiofrequency technologies,2022;H198、o et al.,2018),Very Small Aperture Terminal Systems(VSAT)(Rodseth et al.,2015),Low Earth Orbit(LEO)Systems(Space Explored,2022;Spaceflight 101,2022),Local Real-Time Communication Systems(Kongsberg,2019;Lee et al.,2021).The coverage of the communication systems is defined in Section 2.2.Table 4:Compa199、rison of digital communication technologies.Communication technology Bandwidth Mbps Coverage Latency mean ms Available Mobile Data Services 4G 60-350 A0 50 Now Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 27 of 70 CLTE 10-100 A1 50 Now 5G 1000 20 000 A0 1 Now Satellite Systems VSAT 0.1-10200、0 A2 350 Now Iridium 1.5 A4 200 Now Starlink 300 A3-A4 99 2023 Local Real-Time Communication Systems 5G private network 100 20 000 LOS 1 Now ISM 1 NF 1 Now MBR 0.7-17 LOS 1 Now*CLTE=Coastal Long-Term Evolution.*ISM=Instrumentation,Scientific,and Medical bands.*MBR=Maritime Broadband Radio.*LOS=Line 201、of Sight.What communication system is best suited will depend on the operational phase,i.e.,port area,coastal,or deep sea.Requirements for autonomous ship and ROC communication are not easily available.The requirements depend on what needs to be communicated.For instance,if video needs to be communi202、cated to the ROC,the bandwidth required depends on the video quality.For high resolution video HD 1080p,5 Mbps may be needed,while for low resolution video SD 360p only 0.7 Mbps may be needed28.Nevertheless,the ROC will use all the bandwidth that is available and need to prioritize on what is commun203、icated depending on the bandwidth limitations.It is assumed that the ship enters a minimum risk condition state if the communication is lost in a challenging situation.5.3.1 At Port At port the ship needs to be moored and the cargo needs to be handled.If the cargo handling is operated remotely,there204、 are certain criteria that needs to apply.Today,the requirements to do the cargo handling remotely are not yet defined.Acceptance Criteria 1)Near Field(NF)communication coverage is required.2)Gain situational awareness to remotely operate deck cranes during cargo handling from an ROC.3)Remote contro205、l deck cranes during cargo handling from an ROC.4)Must be able to communicate with other vessels,authorities,and ports in real-time.When the ship is at port,all the communication systems listed in Table 4 have a coverage of at least near field.Thus,Acceptance Criteria 1 is satisfied if one of these 206、systems are used.To satisfy Acceptance Criteria 2,the communication system must have high bandwidth and low latency.To get sufficient situational awareness in an ROC to remotely operate deck cranes,we assume that HD 1080p video of needs to be transferred,giving a minimum bandwidth requirement of 5 M207、bps.Additionally,other data may need to be transferred to the ROC to get situational awareness.MBR and 5G private network have sufficient bandwidth and low latency(1 ms)and can satisfy Acceptance Criteria 2 and 3.Since communication between the ship and the ROC is available,Acceptance Criteria 4 can208、 be satisfied by transferring voice communication(e.g.from VHF radio)to and from a ROC where an operator handles the communication.As all the acceptance criteria are satisfied,a green light is given for communication at port(see Figure 11).5.3.2 Near Port In this phase the ship needs to be docked an209、d navigate between other vessels and leisure activities.28 https:/ Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 28 of 70 Acceptance Criteria 5)LOS communication coverage is required.6)Gain situational awareness around the autonomous ship at all times.7)Possible to remotely control a ship 210、when docking and maneuvering on demand.8)Must be able to communicate with other vessels,authorities,and ports in real-time.Many of the communication systems have coverage that satisfy Acceptance Criteria 5.Data from several sensors may be needed to gain a situational awareness at the ROC,e.g.,camera211、,radar,and lidar.Exactly which sensor data is needed at an ROC is not certain at this moment,and the requirements for the bandwidth and latency will depend on the sensor data being transferred.Assuming that SD video(1080p)needs to be transferred to the ROC to gain situational awareness,this requires212、 about 0.7 Mpbs.Other sensor data required will add to the required bandwidth.To remotely control a ship near port,low latency is important.5G and MBR both have LOS communication coverage and low latency,but 5G has significantly more bandwidth than MBR.This means that 5G and maybe MBR(depending on t213、he bandwidth)satisfy Acceptance Criteria 5-7.Since communication between the ship and a ROC is available,Acceptance Criteria 8 can be satisfied by transferring voice communication to and from a ROC where an operator handles the communication.This means that all the acceptance criteria are satisfied,214、giving a green light for communication near port(see Figure 11).5.3.3 Coastal In this operation phase the ship can have a challenging navigation task with many vessels and possible groundings.Acceptance Criteria 9)The communication coverage requirement is A2(regional sea coverage,according to Table 215、1).10)Gain situational awareness around the autonomous ship at all times.11)Possible to remotely control a ship when traffic picture is too complex or in case of unforeseen events.For instance,if the traffic picture is complex,a human operator may need to communicate with nearby vessels and decide o216、n who is doing what.12)Must be able to communicate with other vessels,authorities,and ports in real-time.In a coastal operation,the vessel is close to the shoreline and may have terrestrial communication systems available,thus the communication coverage requirements would be A1 or A2 depending on th217、e operational area.To cover most coastal areas,A2 is set as the acceptance criteria.This means that satellite communication is required to satisfy Acceptance Criteria 9,assuming that the satellites systems are available.As described in the near port operational phase,the sensor data required to gain218、 situational awareness in an ROC are not certain at the moment.VSAT has A2 communication coverage and can have up to 100 Mpbs of bandwidth,but a latency of 350 ms.However,a cargo ship typically moves slowly,a latency below half a second is assumed satisfactory for remote control.Thus,under the given219、 assumptions,Acceptance Criteria 10 and 11 are satisfied for the coastal operational phase.Since communication between the ship and a ROC is available,Acceptance Criteria 12 can be satisfied by transferring voice communication to and from a ROC where an operator handles the communication.This means 220、that all the acceptance criteria are satisfied,giving a green light for communication near port(see Figure 11).The satellite communication system Starlink is still commissioning but aims to be able to communicate with a low latency and high bandwidth and is an option when it is fully up and running.221、5.3.4 Deep Sea Acceptance Criteria Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 29 of 70 13)The communication coverage requirement is A3(global coverage,except latitudes 70,according to Table 1).14)Gain situational awareness around the autonomous ship on demand.15)Possible to remotely con222、trol a ship on demand.16)Must be able to communicate with other vessels,authorities,and ports in real-time.For deep sea operations,terrestrial communication is not available.Thus,satellite communication is needed.Iridium has a global coverage(A3),bandwidth of 1.5 Mpbs,and a latency of 200 ms.Using I223、ridium,Acceptance Criteria 13 is satisfied.As mentioned in the other phases,what sensor data is required to gain situational awareness in an ROC is not certain at the moment.Since the bandwidth of Iridium is limited,the sensor data that can be transferred is also limited.However,1.5 Mpbs is enough t224、o send a SD video(0.7 Mpbs)and some other data.However,it might not be enough bandwidth to gain a full situational awareness at the ROC.To take remote control of the vessel,low latency is important.In deep sea,a cargo ship moves slowly and thus a latency of 200 ms is assumed acceptable.With the curr225、ently available satellite system Iridium,Acceptance Criteria 13 and 15 are satisfied,but Acceptance Criteria 14 may be harder to satisfy with this system due to the limited bandwidth.Communicating with authorities,vessels and ports is assumed to require limited bandwidth and Acceptance Criteria 16 s226、hould thus be satisfied using the currently available communication system.In near future,Starlink will be up and running and can provide a global coverage with high bandwidth and low latency and is assumed to satisfy all the acceptance criteria.This gives a yellow light for communication in deep se227、a,as this is expected to be feasible within the next five years(see Figure 11).5.3.5 Conclusion There exist communication systems that have coverage for all the operational phases.The challenge for all the phases,is how much data is needed to gain situational awareness at the ROC and the requirement228、s this puts on the bandwidth.For the phases at port and near port,communication systems with high bandwidth and low latency are available,enabling large amounts of data that can be transferred to gain situational awareness and remote control.For coastal,high bandwidth is also available,but with some229、 latency.However,as a large cargo ships typically move slowly,the latency is relatively low for this use case.In the deep sea phase,limited bandwidth is available today with a global coverage,meaning that full situational awareness might be a challenge.The technical feasibility for remote operation 230、for the different operational phases is summarized in Figure 11.Figure 11:Technical feasibility for communication for an unmanned cargo ship.5.4 Cargo Handling Acceptance Criteria 1)The crane must be able to connect to and release the specific cargo.2)The crane must be able to move the cargo from qu231、ay side to cargo hold.3)The cargo must be adequately secured without human support.4)The cargo must be kept secured during the voyage.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 30 of 70 A gap analysis for automated cargo handling operations(Mrkrid et al.,2022)was conducted as a part of 232、the SFI Autoship.This analysis was done for both break-bulk and containers as indicated by the title.The main findings are summarized in this section.Onshore(terminal)cranes were not part of the scope of the mentioned report,but the same challenge applies here as well,the lack of automation of conne233、ction and release of the cargo.The cranes themselves are in many cases automated and remotely controlled.However,the same conclusion goes as for deck cranes,the operations cannot be performed without personnel due to the hooking of the cargo.This is especially true for break-bulk,whereas there are s234、olutions available for containers,related to automatic twist-locks.For break-bulk,the main finding is that these operations are hard to automate,especially the connection(hooking)of the cargo.The main reason for this is the vast diversity of commodities(up to 15-20 per voyage)and packaging which mak235、es automation challenging.As of today,there is no fully automated connection(hooking)for any commodity(maybe except from e.g.steel pipes where magnets can be used),and the report suggests separate research projects for the matter.Remote control of the cargo handling operations has been suggested as 236、a first step towards automation,and there are plans in WP5 to perform research activities related to remote control of shipboard cranes.There are semi-autonomous solutions in the market,and for some commodities there are potentials for autonomous hooking,as per the findings from the gap analysis for237、 automated cargo handling operations(Mrkrid et al.,2022).Another important issue related to autonomous cargo handling is the securing of the cargo units.For containers this is an issue when these are being stacked above deck.There is currently no solution available for automation of the lashing oper238、ations.Cell guides have been suggested as a solution to this,but for bigger containers ships like the NCL fleet,these are not feasible due to the height of the container stacks.The technical feasibility of constrained autonomous cargo handling for a cargo ship is summarized in Figure 12.Figure 12:Te239、chnical feasibility of cargo handling for a cargo ship.5.5 Mooring Acceptance Criteria 1)The mooring system must automatically moor and unmoor the ship.2)The mooring system must be able to handle draft and tidal changes.3)The mooring system must be able to handle rolling motions induced by cargo han240、dling.In this study,mooring is only considered when the ship is at port,so the other operational phases are not applicable.A ship can also be moored at sea,for instance to another ship.However,this is not considered in this study.As both use cases,i.e.deep sea bulk ships and short sea container ship241、s,are large cargo ships,they are evaluated together for the mooring task.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 31 of 70 A gap analysis on automated mooring systems have been made as a part of the SFI Autoship project(Bellingmo&Jrgensen,2022).This section summarizes the outcomes fro242、m that report.Today,there exist three different types of automated mooring,that is,vacuum pads or magnetic pads attaching to the hull of the ship,and robot arm used to attach the mooring lines from the ship on bollards on the quay.AutoMooring Solutions(AMS)29,Trelleborg30,and Cavotec31 are providers243、 of vacuum based mooring systems.AMS is the only provider of the magnetic mooring system.These systems are in general flexible as to how big vessels they can serve,it is rather a question about cost.There seem to be few limitations regarding operation,if the installed system(with several pads)is des244、igned to meet the weather conditions in the area.In general,vacuum pads are preferred over magnets,as magnet pads require a completely flat surface to withhold the holding force.From a technical point of view,vacuum pads seem to be the most versatile and promising solution,however it is an expensive245、 investment for ports around the world,aspects which will be discussed in chapter 7(commercial feasibility).For the robot arm systems,two systems are available,that is,the lasso robotic arm from MacGregor,which is installed on Yara Birkeland32,and the rope picker robot from AutoMooring Solutions(AMS246、)33.A challenge with the large ships is the height differences that occur due to tidewaters and differences in draught.The total height difference can be up to 11 meters according to Grieg Star.The robotic arm is said to have a range of 21 meters,but further investigation is needed to conclude wheth247、er this is adequate for these kinds of vessels.Among these automated mooring systems,the vacuum-based system has been tested the most.The robotic arm mooring system are in the testing phase and has not been thoroughly tested in normal operation yet.Thus,the real performance of the robot arm systems 248、is not certain.For cargo ship,assuming that the ships operate between ports where automatic vacuum mooring systems are available,the mooring system can automatically moor the vessel,handle large draft and tidal changes and roll motions induced by cargo handling.This means that all the acceptance cri249、teria are satisfied,and by that a green light is given indicating that automated mooring is technically feasible today for both deep sea bulk ships and short sea container ships,see Figure 13.Figure 13:Technical feasibility of automated mooring for an unmanned cargo ship.5.6 Discussion In order to l250、imit the scope of this study,several topics have not been discussed in the main section but will be briefly discussed in the following.One such topic is safety.Safety is essential to have trust in autonomous systems and must be incorporated in all the technical systems to maintain a safe operation.F251、or instance,29 https:/ https:/ 31 https:/ 32 https:/ https:/ no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 32 of 70 when transmitting and receiving data,e.g.,between an autonomous ship and a ROC,the cyber security is crucial.An ROC operator must have the correct information from the autonomous shi252、p to correctly determine what should be done.If not,it can lead to a dangerous situation.Even conventional vessels are subject to cyber-attacks,such as jamming and spoofing.For an autonomous ship being monitored from a ROC,more data needs to be transferred,making it even more vulnerable.More than ju253、st making sure that data is received,one must ensure the quality of the data used for the autonomous systems.A deviation or failure in data can impact the performance of the whole operation.This can lead to downtime for the autonomous system,which can be critical for an unmanned ship.Thus,it is vita254、l to ensure the uptime of the autonomous systems.Even though a technological solution exists to automate a function,e.g.,automated mooring,the autonomous systems must be operational at all times to avoid downtime.This has not been included in the acceptance criteria for the different tasks,as some o255、f the systems are still under development and the performance is not certain.If an autonomous system has limited performance in terms of uptime or a decision is based on the wrong input data,redundant systems may need to be considered to ensure continuous operation.However,with redundancy comes an a256、dditional cost.The matter of redundance will be further discussed in Chapter 7.In case of a failure,the unmanned ship must enter a minimum risk condition state which must be predefined.This has not been included in the acceptance criteria in this chapter but must be in place to safely operate an unm257、anned ship.Additionally,to be operated from a ROC,the navigation system must know its own limitations and when human assistance is needed.The results from this study show that an unmanned deep sea bulk ship is not possible with the technology available today.However,as this study considers a constra258、ined autonomous ship,where human support can be offered from an ROC or by crew onboard,constrained autonomy might still be achieved for some tasks by human assistance from crew onboard.Depending on the technological feasibility,the manning related to some tasks may be reduced.Reduced manning due to 259、increased autonomy can enable some tasks to be operated periodically unmanned.Periodically unmanned tasks introduce new challenges,such as when to alert the operator and if the system has sufficient situational awareness to know when human assistance is needed.This is particularly relevant for the d260、eep sea phase,where the traffic is limited and thus the navigation should be easier.For propulsion systems,reducing the manning depends on the performance and uptime.With the engines and fuels typically used today,reduced manning may only be possible for short voyages.The need for maintenance and do261、wntime for alternative propulsion systems needs to be further investigated.Using automated mooring is possible today and would liberate the crew related to this task today.Regarding automated cargo handling,if this can be fully automated,manning can be reduced.However,as this is not technically feas262、ible in the near future,reduced crew in this task is also a future potential.Moreover,to reduce the overall manning,one must look at all the different tasks the crew are involved in on bulk ships,as one person typically performs multiple tasks that are vital for the operation.The topic of reduced ma263、nning and periodically manning should be further investigated in this SFI.5.7 Technical Conclusion Figure 14 summarizes the technical feasibility of an unmanned constrained autonomous cargo ship.The different tasks have been given a color indicating the feasibility for each operation phase.The defin264、ition of the traffic lights for the technical feasibility is described in Table 2.Project no.302005882 Report No OC2022 A-110 Version 1.0 33 of 70 Figure 14:Technical feasibility for an unmanned cargo ship.As can been seen from Figure 14,there are some yellow and red lights,indicating that an unmann265、ed cargo ship is not feasible today.For the at port operational phase,the biggest challenge might be the autonomous cargo handling.Automated mooring is possible and commercially available in the market today.For the near port phase,the biggest challenge for autonomy is the navigation and control tas266、k,where object detection and classification need further development.For the coastal phase,the navigational challenge from near port remains,but also the power and propulsion system can be a challenge due to possible failures or maintenance needed.For deep sea,the main challenge is the power and pro267、pulsion,that needs to be functioning without failures for the whole duration of the phase,which can be up to 1.5 months.Moreover,navigation should be easier in this phase as there is less traffic,but communication with a ROC can be limited by coverage,bandwidth,and latency.However,this depends on wh268、at is needed to be communicated to a ROC in this phase,which is not yet determined.Project no.302005882 Report No Klikk eller trykk her for skrive inn tekst.Version 1.0 34 of 70 6 Regulatory feasibility The overall objective of this chapter is to understand if a deep-sea bulk ship or a short-sea con269、tainer ship can operate unmanned with autonomy level constrained autonomy,seen from a regulatory perspective.There will be a separation between international regulations and national,where Norway is chosen specifically,with input from the Norwegian Maritime Authority(NMA)and the Norwegian Coastal Ad270、ministration(NCA)among others.The assessments will be concluded with traffic lights as indicated in Table 5.Table 5:Colours and descriptions for regulatory assessment.Compliance with applicable regulations is expected to require moderate concept qualification efforts.However,might not necessarily be271、en proven commercially yet.Testing and verification period expected(with people on board during this period).Compliance with applicable regulations demands extensive processes for concept development and qualification.Not possible(or incredibly challenging)to achieve unmanned operation which satisfi272、es applicable regulations Not applicable 6.1 Relevant regulations It has been decided to split the assessment into international and national regulations,where Norway is used as national reference in this report.6.1.1 International Regulations The most relevant international authorities to be includ273、ed as part of the regulator feasibility for international operation are:The International Maritime Organization(IMO)The International Labour Organisation The International Tele Union European Maritime Safety Agency(EMSA)Whereas the most relevant conventions are:The Safety of Life at Sea Convention(S274、OLAS)The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships The International Search and Rescue Convention(SAR)The Convention on Standard of Training,Certification and Watchkeeping for seafarers(STCW)The Maritime Labour Convention The Load Lines Convention The Convention on Internat275、ional Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea(COLREG)The International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Shipsu The United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea(UNCLOS)It has been necessary to limit the scope of this international regulatory feasibility assessment and hence the focus in this 276、report is limited to IMO,COLREG and UNCLOS,and DNV is included as classification society.Project no.302005882 Report No Klikk eller trykk her for skrive inn tekst.Version 1.0 35 of 70 6.1.1.1 The International Maritime Organization(IMO)regulatory scoping exercise IMO completed a regulatory scoping e277、xercise(RSE)for the use of maritime autonomous surface ships(MASS)in 2021(IMO,2021).The aim of this RSE was to determine how safe,secure,and environmental sound MASS operations might be addressed by IMO instruments.IMO did some assumptions during the RSE which are summarized as follows:Autonomy leve278、l four means no crew on board Passenger transport without seafarers on board cannot be performed Determination of whether remote operator is a seafarer and whether it encompasses all personnel working on board of a ship or those individuals capable of operational control of the ship,are outside of t279、he remit of RSE For autonomy level three and four persons may stay on board during berthing,cargo handling and anchoring MASS of level one is considered a conventional ship with some additional functions to support human decision-making.The Safety Management of MASS relates to functions which are au280、tonomous High-priority issues stemming from the RSE(IMO,2021):Meaning of the terms master,crew,or responsible person Remote control station/centre Remote operator as seafarer Terminology Further potential gaps and topics(IMO,2021):Manual operations and alarms on the bridge Actions by personnel(e.g.f281、irefighting,cargoes stowage and securing and maintenance)Watchkeeping Implications for search and rescue Information required to be on board for safe operation The goal of IMO is to develop a MASS Code.An IMO road-map for development of IMO instruments for MASS aims at developing a goal-based instru282、ment in the form of a non-mandatory Code,which is planned to be adopted in 2024.A mandatory Code will be developed and enter into force in 2028,based on the experience from the non-mandatory Code34.This MASS Code will include goals,functional requirements,and corresponding regulations,suitable for a283、ll degrees of autonomy,and at the same time address important gaps and topics identified by the RSE.Based on the discussions above,second half of 2024 will be the earliest occasion where an IMO Mass Code will be available.Before such a MASS Code is in place,it is not likely that unmanned ships will 284、be allowed to operate internationally,unless the involved countries make a bilateral agreement permitting a specific ship to sail unmanned.Such bilateral agreements could potentially enable certain international voyages for an unmanned vessel,but a free sailing unmanned cargo ship is not realistic i285、n the absence of a MASS Code.6.1.1.2 The Convention on International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea(COLREG)Whether or not MASS can be feasible from a COLREG perspective is an interesting and challenging issue to address,as there are various contexts and perspectives to consider.One of 286、which is the fact that MASS will have to coexist and interact with conventional manned vessels in the foreseeable future.34 https:/www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Autonomous-shipping.aspx Project no.302005882 Report No Klikk eller trykk her for skrive inn tekst.Version 1.0 36 of 70 As lon287、g as MASS will interact with humans on manned ships there has to be a limited number of common and easy to understand rules known to,and obeyed by,all vessels at sea.One can dream up other rules,but what we got,and need to adhere to,is the COLREGs.Having said that,one might consider if extensions or288、 revisions may be needed(Porathe,2019).Porathe further explains that the COLREGs are written in a general manner in order to be applicable in a wide range of situations,such that the precise interpretation of the rules generally requires context-based considerations where the ordinary practice of se289、amen is applied in addition to knowledge of the rules.The challenges related to interpretation of COLREGs for autonomous navigation systems(ANS)are further emphasized from a legal perspective,in the following contribution by the doctorate at The Faculty of Law in Oslo(University of Oslo):Autonomous 290、navigation must contend with the problem of collision avoidance,an aspect regulated by the ColRegs(i.e.,Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea,1972).A number of rules are built around the assumption that human senses and perception will be used.It is uncertain s291、o far,from a legal perspective,whether technical solutions which emulates human characteristics can constitute an acceptable equivalent means of compliance with these aspects of the COLREGs.Moreover,to increase the chances that MASS will be operating within the same legal framework of conduct as reg292、ular vessels,it is crucial to consider how the conduct-oriented rules will be incorporated into the algorithms of their autonomous navigation systems(ANS).However,the COLREGs display the conventional quirks of any legal instrument written in natural language,such as vagueness and generality,which co293、nflicts with the precision and clarity that algorithms often require.Establishing a baseline of good conduct that can serve as a standard for the development of COLREGs-compliant ANS assumes that the normative content of each rule is well understood,which naturally entails legal interpretation.But l294、egal interpretation tends to be case-specific,carried in the light of factual information which helps guide the analysis of the rules.This is fundamentally different from the extrapolative exercise of programming ANS,which necessitates that the algorithms represent a timeless understanding of the ru295、les which would theoretically allow MASS to tackle in a legally acceptable manner future and unforeseen circumstances.The current COLREGs certainly complicates the task,but it is not certain they represent an absolute obstacle to MASS either,as for example the regulatory challenge will significantly296、 vary from one rule to another.Though amendments to the ColRegs may be sensible,MASS-specific amendments are perhaps not ideal due to the difficulty of proposing in advance general solutions to problems that will depend on the features of continuously evolving proposed technical solutions.Figure 15 297、shows a screenshot from ,situated outside of the Netherlands,with Rotterdam in the bottom left corner.This figure is included to show the complexity of the maritime traffic in congested areas internationally.The COLREG algorithms will have to deal with a lot of conflicting collision avoidance situat298、ions in this area.Thomas Porathe(Porathe,2019)concludes that It is of great importance that the maneuvers of autonomous ships are predictable to human operators on manual ships.The AI onboard has a potential to become smarter than humans,and to be able to extrapolate further into the future and ther299、eby behave in a way that might surprise people(automation surprise).Instead the software should focus on behaving in a humanlike manner.Project no.302005882 Report No Klikk eller trykk her for skrive inn tekst.Version 1.0 37 of 70 Figure 15:Marine traffic around Rotterdam and the coast of the Nether300、lands,source:MarineT(screenshot 27.09.2022 12:41).WP4 in SFI Autoship has a particular focus on COLREGs through the doctorate at The Faculty of Law in Oslo(University of Oslo).The research is aimed at discussing the challenges presented by MASS from various angles.The research does not only ask how 301、the current COLREGs could be an obstacle to achieving fully unmanned autonomous ships but is similarly interested in the different ways the introduction of new technology can challenge long established understandings of existing legal concepts.The existing legal norms are supposed to guide human beh302、avior.When the regulated conduct is no longer being carried out by humans,our usual methods for assessing and verifying compliance are also challenged.If compliance with COLREGs must be proven before MASS are allowed to operate,then asking these questions are paramount.It is too early at this stage 303、to conclude whether MASS are going to be obstructed by the current COLREGs,especially when many of the technical aspects remain unresolved and in the development stage.Any conclusion at this stage will have to remain highly speculative,but the overall impression is that the traffic light is yellow a304、s seen from a COLREG perspective,since extensive processes for concept development and qualification will be necessary to identify and address difficult cases.6.1.1.3 The United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea(UNCLOS)The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in 1982.It lay305、s down a comprehensive regime of law and order in the worlds oceans and seas establishing rules governing all uses of the oceans and their resources.It embodies in one instrument traditional rules for the uses of the oceans and at the same time introduces new legal concepts and regimes and addresses306、 new concerns.The Convention also provides the framework for further development of specific areas of the law of the sea.35 It has been underlined by NMA that UNCLOS might have some hurdles to overcome for autonomous vessels.More specifically Article 91,94 and 98 and a general question whether a MAS307、S can be categorized as a ship.Challenges related to the specific articles are listed as follows:Article 91:Nationality of ships 35 https:/www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Legal/Pages/UnitedNationsConventionOnTheLawOfTheSea.aspx Project no.302005882 Report No Klikk eller trykk her for skrive inn tekst.Version308、 1.0 38 of 70 o This article is about the genuine link between a ship and a flag state.So,a question arises:Can a flag state exercise control of a vessel that is operated by an ROC outside of the flag states territory?o In Norway jurisdiction is directed towards the ship owner and not the ship Artic309、le 94:Duties of the flag states o Related to the definitions of master and crew and how the state flag can exercise jurisdiction when the master/crew is situated in another country,and what will be the role of a remote operator Article 98:Duty to render assistance o The more autonomous the ship beco310、mes,the more it will struggle to render assistance.However,it is the master of the ship who is responsible when it comes to rendering assistance.Some of the challenges listed above can be covered by the coming IMO MASS Code,but not all,so UNCLOS must be considered specifically when assessing whether311、 a ship can operate freely internationally.6.1.1.4 Conclusion The(mandatory)IMO MASS Code will not be ready until 2028,and some of the UNCLOS articles have not been covered yet for unmanned ships.COLREGs is also considered challenging,as there are still various challenges to be addressed and solutio312、ns to be developed.Hence,the conclusive color of the traffic light is red,meaning that it is not currently possible to comply with applicable regulations for an unmanned ship operating in international waters.Possible exceptions to this conclusion are cases where bilateral agreements between countri313、es enable unmanned operation in a specific routes.Such operation,however,is greatly limited and differs substantially from the use cases described in chapter 4.Furthermore,unmanned operation based on bilateral agreements requires extensive qualification and development processes with relevant author314、ities.6.1.2 National regulations in Norway In Norway,the responsibility of maritime safety is divided between the Norwegian Maritime Authority(NMA)and the Norwegian Coastal Administration(NCA).The NMA is responsible for the safety of life,health,environment,and materials on vessel with Norwegian fla315、g and foreign vessels in Norwegian waters(Norwegian Maritime Authority,2022),while the NCA is responsible for safe and efficient passage in fairways along the coast and into ports,and national emergency preparedness against acute pollution(The Norwegian Coastal Administration,2022).6.1.2.1 The Norwe316、gian Maritime Authority(NMA)Today there are no existing national regulations specific for approval of autonomous vessels.Due to the ongoing projects on autonomous ships(see Section 2.3),a circular(Rundskriv-Serie V.RSV 12-2020)has been developed by the NMA(Norwegian Maritime Authority,2020a).The cir317、cular describes the documentation requirements and principles for ships with autonomous functions.To ensure that autonomous or remotely operated ships are as safe as conventional ships,and that risks that come from remote control or autonomy are identified,NMA bases their procedures on the IMO guide318、lines for the approval of alternatives and equivalents as provided for in various IMO instruments,known as Circ.1455(International Maritime Organization,2013).Temporary assessment and final acceptance of new technology and solutions based on this circular is done by NMA.An autonomous or remotely con319、trolled ship which NMA accepts based on the circular,might get a certificate or approval to operate in domestic service.This is the case even if the ship is built according to a classification societys guidelines and class rules(Norwegian Maritime Authority,2020a).Project no.302005882 Report No Klik320、k eller trykk her for skrive inn tekst.Version 1.0 39 of 70 The legislations applicable to the ship type in question(cargo ship,passenger ship,fishing vessel etc.)are referred to as a basis in the NMA circular,along with the general philosophy that autonomous or remotely operated ships should have t321、he same safety levels as conventional ships.Furthermore,the following regulations are referred to in section 3 of the NMA circular:i.Ship Safety and Security Act ii.Reg.n.1072 on construction of ships iii.R .666 f (R .09)(“f k f ”)iv.R .537 k (“V k f k f ”)v.Reg.n.75 on collision avoidance at sea(Sj322、veisreglene)Documentation requirements based on the IMO Circ.1455 are linked to:1.Preliminary design I.Concept of operation(CONOPS)II.Pre-HAZID III.Safety philosophy IV.Design philosophy V.Operation and maintenance philosophy 2.Analysis of preliminary design I.Updated Pre-HAZID with corresponding II323、.Risk analysis/assessments III.Gap analysis IV.HAZID and risk assessments 3.Analysis of final design I.HAZID and risk assessments 4.Performance approval tests&analyses I.Failure Mode and Effect Analysis(FMEA)II.Test requirements A flow chart for the certification process for conventional vs non-conv324、entional ships is shown in Figure 16(in Norwegian).Note the particular focus on third party verification for the alternative design process related to the non-conventional part.This alternative design process is closely related to the list of documentation requirements above.The conclusion on regula325、tory feasibility for domestic service is positive based on the NMA processes described above.Project no.302005882 Report No Klikk eller trykk her for skrive inn tekst.Version 1.0 40 of 70 Figure 16:Flow chart for certification process for conventional vs non-conventional ship,source:NMA Rundskriv-Se326、rie V.RSV 12-2020(Norwegian Maritime Authority,2020b).6.1.2.2 The Norwegian Coastal Administration(NCA)After getting the approval to operate autonomously from the NMA,one still needs to get approval to operate in the Norwegian waters.This is the mandate of the NCA.As for conventional ships,an autono327、mous ship should not negatively affect the maritime security or the traffic flow.The NCA exercises authority under the following regulations:The Harbour Act,the Pilotage Act,the Pollution Control Act,the Svalbard Environmental Protection Act and the Planning and Building Act(The Norwegian Coastal Ad328、ministration,2022).The Pilotage Act is now a part of the Harbour act.Ships with a length longer than 70 m or width over 20 m are required to have pilotage in applicable waters(Lovdata,2015).As described in Sections 4.1 and 4.2,the use case bulk ship and use case container ship are more than 80 m lon329、g,meaning that pilotage is required.For a cargo ship operating autonomously in Norwegian waters,the Harbour Act describes how a ship owner can sail without pilotage by applying to get approval from the NCA for autonom kystseilas(meaning autonomous coastal sailing)(Lovdata,2018).As this law(autonom k330、ystseilas)has not been applied for yet,it describes the application steps in general terms.The terms include a)Surveys and step-by-step testing,b)Requirements for the vessels navigation and maneuvering system,c)Sailing restrictions,and d)Requirements for competence of the local waters for personnel 331、associated with the testing and operation of autonomous coastal sailing and requirements for pilots to be consulted.As long as the ship owner can satisfy the requirements for autonom kystseilas,a bulk ship or container ship can operate without a pilot on board from a regulatory standpoint(Lovdata,20332、18).6.1.3 Classification society requirements EMSA defines classification societies as organisations which develop and apply technical standards for the design,construction and survey of ships and which carry out surveys and inspections on board ships.Flag Project no.302005882 Report No Klikk eller 333、trykk her for skrive inn tekst.Version 1.0 41 of 70 states can authorise classification societies to act on their behalf to carry out statutory survey and certification work of their ships.36 While this feasibility study focuses on DNV when it comes to classification society requirements,there are various other initiatives related to autonomous ships among the other classification societies.One su