Issue 45 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Aug/Sept 2022 Tidewie USV Tupan | Performance monitoring | Bayonet 350 | UAVs insight | Xponential 2022 | ULPower UL350i and UL350iHPS | Elroy Air Chaparral | Gimbals | Clogworks Dark Matter

16 August/September 2022 | Uncrewed Systems Technology SK Shipping has demonstrated the first autonomous operation of a super-large liquid natural gas (LNG) carrier in a month-long transoceanic voyage (writes Nick Flaherty). The Prism Courage carrier was equipped with the HiNAS 2.0 Level 2 autonomous navigation system developed by Avikus and operated over a 10,000 km journey. The HiNAS 2.0 system created optimal routes to reduce fuel consumption by 7% and avoided more then 100 collisions with other ships. The Prism Courage departed from Freeport in Texas on the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico on May 1, passed through the Panama Canal and arrived at the Boryeong LNG Terminal in South Korea after 33 days. Around half the 20,000 km journey was under the control of the HiNAS 2.0 system. The AI system recognises the surrounding environment, such as weather, wave heights and nearby ships, and then controls the vessel’s steering commands in real time. The Level 2 autonomous navigation technology can control and operate the ship in addition to the functions of recognition and judgement (Level 1). The system uses both IR and EO cameras. The IR camera has a resolution of 640 x 512 pixels, a horizontal field of view (FoV) of 50 º and a total FoV of 140 º , while the EO camera has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and a horizontal FoV of 110 º , for a total FoV of 180 º to cover the horizon. This image data is fused with data from S-band and X-band radars and AIS identification system on the vessel. The vision processing is handled on an eight-core ARM processor on a single-board computer, and the AI runs on an Intel server with 16 Gbytes of DDR4 DRAM memory and a 2 Tbyte hard drive. The voyage was conducted under real- time monitoring by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Korea Register of Shipping to verify the performance and stability of the technology. Avikus plans to commercialise HiNAS 2.0 before the end of this year after receiving a certification from ABS. The next stage is to upgrade the recognition system to identify and avoid small leisure boats so that the system can be used closer to the shore. Tanker’s pan-ocean debut Surface vessels Crew on the ‘Prism Courage’ examine the Avikus HiNAS 2.0 autonomous navigation system during its voyage from Texas to South Korea