Unmanned Systems Technology 004 | Delair-Tech DT18 | Autopilots | Rotron RT600 | Unmanned surface vehicles | AMRC | Motion control | Batteries

54 Insight | Unmanned surface vehicles technology readiness levels are there,” says Oskar Levander, vice-president for innovation at Rolls-Royce Marine. “Society seems to be ready at this time, it’s happening everywhere and other sectors [such as aircraft and driverless cars] are further ahead and have paved the way.” There are some areas where the company sees collaboration as essential, such as satellite comms systems (see sidebar on page 53). GPS alone would not be sufficient here so a back-up system would be needed, depending on the type of ship and where it is operating. “The other big trend is ship intelligence and connectivity, and we are at the dawn of the ship intelligence era,” says Levander. This is about the optimisation of data from the ship, mainly for predictive maintenance with machine health monitoring but also for navigation and positioning, and ranges from automatic reports to full autonomous operation. Even if a vessel operates autonomously for much of the time, there is also a role for remote control systems. A skilled captain could remotely control a vessel to bring it into port, and handle up to 15 separate vessels. This also means satellite links could be used for monitoring autonomous operations out at sea, but higher bandwidth 4G LTE cellular links could be used to bring the vessel into port under remote control. Such a system is being trialled in South Korea by SK Telecom. It is testing an LTE-M (LTE for Maritime Wireless Communications) network that could reach as far as 100 km from shore. Current LTE technologies support data links of up to 1 Gbit/s download from a base station, but the key figure is the upload rate from the vessel, which can be up to 300 Mbit/s. Research is being carried out to boost this to 3 Gbit/s for downloads and 1.5 Gbit/s for uploads. SK Telecom plans to deploy its test network by May 2016 in the East Sea off the coast of Korea using a custom- designed high-gain antenna on shore and a custom LTE-M router installed on a ship. As Levander explains, “There will still be a human element in the picture, even though most of the time the vessel will be autonomous, as a human is better at things that you cannot foresee or predict. Most marine accidents – 75-80% – are caused by human factors, for example when people are tired, so if we can provide a better working environment onshore and better technology for collision avoidance then we think we can significantly improve the safety, but we will need redundant systems in case something fails.” The most challenging issue is reliability. “We need to change the culture of the industry away from needing to have someone on board the vessel to fix it,” Levander says. “For example, there used to be engineers on board aircraft, but no one expects that any more. So it’s about providing the technology for this, with predictive maintenance and analysis of data to predict things. “These days we have predictive sensors on the big equipment, but this isn’t sufficient. In the future you’ll need to monitor every single component, so we are already applying wireless sensors around ships. Which wireless standard we use will depend a little on the research as it will vary according to the location, whether the sensors are in an electrical cabinet, in the hull, or elsewhere.” Other benefits include issues such as tackling piracy, as the new designs give fewer opportunities for pirates to board the vessel, and once aboard they cannot steer it. However, the systems are potentially vulnerable to cyber attacks, so the experience of the security of sensors used on gas turbines on aircraft and UAVs will be key. The first large unmanned vessels are likely to be ferries on inland waters, where the environment is more predictable and regulations more flexible. This will then provide the experience for unmanned vessels across oceans in the next decade. Autumn 2015 | Unmanned Systems Technology ASV’s C-Worker survey vessel can travel at 4 knots for up to 30 days (Courtesy of ASV)