How far can artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced automation take the maritime industry?
It could be very far indeed, but it’s relatively early days and somewhat complicated, involving many moving parts.
AI and its contemporary technologies are about planning and collaboration for the maritime trade, and tackling pressing environmental, sustainability, and governance (ESG) challenges. It is the wave of the future, and the future is now.
It’s all about the data. Even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) systems have little value if the data chain receives bad or incomplete data regarding container flows, fuel availability and emission regulations, supply chain information, vessel technology, net zero endeavors and emerging climate change processes. But the upside is that AI has the potential to integrate those parts smoothly and efficiently.
According to the Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies (MITAGS) in Seattle, Wa., “How AI is used in the Maritime Shipping Industry,” there are four main areas of adaption for the maritime industry to consider in connection with AI – navigation of route optimization; fuel consumption; equipment and vessel maintenance; and port density and traffic.
In the maritime industry, crew members and vessels can experience many benefits from implementing AI and machine learning into equipment, says MITAGS.
Some of those benefits include:
Reducing costs: AI data tracking and insights can identify inefficient resource use and costly operations. Analyzing fuel use can locate where you are overconsuming resources. Crews can determine strategies to reduce fuel usage, helping cut organization costs. Other processes like more efficient routes and optimized maintenance also cut fuel use, helping vessels reduce their expenses for each trip.
Improving efficiency: From streamlining routes and port access to automated navigation, ships leveraging AI and machine learning can help crews maintain and improve efficiency standards. With automated features, teams can leave processes like data collection and navigation to the computers, allowing them to focus on other essential tasks that require their attention. With data collecting in real-time, crew members can react quickly to changing conditions and use historical data to take more proactive approaches to handle problems more efficiently.
Supporting sustainability: For many organizations, maintaining sustainable practices is a significant priority. AI can support efforts to reduce carbon emissions and waste through resource use and analysis.
Eliminating human error: With AI data tracking, maritime organizations ensure information is accurate; they can ensure changes in metrics are due to different conditions.
Crew members and deckhands may fear they will lose their jobs as computers perform more and more tasks, but MITAGS says crew members should not worry.
“While AI and machine learning can streamline and assist with operations, they can only automate so much. Individuals offer unique skills and capabilities that machines cannot replicate, making a human presence on ships invaluable.”
Martyn Wingrove, editor of UK-based Riviera Maritime Media, says shipowners “will need digitalization and voyage optimization to comply with IMO’s Carbon Intensity Index (CII) and will use new types of communications to provide greater connectivity to seafarers, charterers and regulators.”
In addition, there is pressure to develop sustainable solutions for decarbonization, and to reduce operating expenditures and applications enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, “driven by faster communications at sea and better connectivity for vessels,” he said.
The shipping industry is under pressure to decarbonize over the next decade, to cut emissions of pollutants including carbon, he continues. Many companies have announced strategies to be carbon-neutral and targets for net zero within 10 or 20 years. “In the long term, this will come from switching to low-carbon or zero-carbon fuels and batteries and introducing efficient newbuilds.”
This is a long, expensive and evolving process. Wingrove notes that in the short term there are steps to take, aided by AI:
• Remote monitoring using onboard sensors, IoT and regular observational reporting enables shipping companies to understand the energy intensity of vessel operations and offer advice to captains to reduce fuel consumption.
• Voyages can be optimized to lower ship speeds and use favorable currents and weather patterns to cut emissions while maintaining safe navigation.
• Analyzing data can help owners to demonstrate the impact of operational efficiencies, monitoring fuel consumption and reporting emissions cuts to authorities.
“Shipowners who adopt these technologies will be able to go beyond CII and obtain competitive advantages over those that have not,” he adds. “There are clear benefits in terms of reducing operating expenditure, gaining better charters and improving efficiency on ships.”
While the widespread deployment of larger, autonomous ocean ships is still on the not-so-distant horizon, there are smaller versions already in use on short-sea routes as feeder vessels.
The world’s first autonomous, electric containership – the 120-TEU Yara Birkeland – was christened in April and is employed on a 15-mile intracoastal route hauling containers between the ports of Herøya and Brevik, Norway, for chemical fertilizer manufacturer, Yara.
The 260-foot, 320-dwt. ship is equipped with Leclanché Marine 6.8 mw batteries that power electric motors that drive two 700 kw tunnel thrusters and a pair of 900 kw. Azipull pods. Recharged from renewable sources, the batteries have a minimum service life of 10 years.
Norway-based Massterly, which operates the vessel for owner Yara, is a joint venture between Kongsberg Maritime and Wilhelmsen. The company monitors the Yara Birkeland’s operations from its headquarters in Horten, Norway.
“More autonomous ships are coming this decade to reduce human risks, but there are still questions about whether computers can be better trusted to make the right decisions in all situations,” said Wingrove, adding that “questions remain” about the reliability for autonomous vessel operations on congested shipping lanes on deep-sea routes.
BuyCo is a France-based developer of ocean transportation management systems for importers and exporters.
“We generally see that shippers don’t have decent digitization tools to manage their container flows,” the company stated in its recent eBook, How Far Can Container Management Flow Be Automated?
“Every shipment generally requires up to 200 emails and phone calls’” the company wrote. “The container shipping process is very long and complex. In the maritime supply chain, the process often involves 20 different companies from the exporter and the importer to the freight forwarder, transporter, customs clearance, terminal, port, and carrier, etc.”
As a result, says BuyCo, an ocean transportation management system (TMS) can address that situation by building a strategy resting on three AI “pillars”:
• Collaboration – Instead of a long chain of coordination by email or phone calls, a collaborative platform gathers key stakeholders of the supply chain into a centralized place, which reduces coordination time on each shipment.
• Planning and execution – Users plan and execute the shipment through a digital platform, “which means the relationship between shippers and carriers becomes modern and digitized.”
• Tracking and visibility – Advanced tracking and visibility, not only on shipments, but also visibility on overall processes, document requirements, and performance of each stakeholder, will help strengthen the supply chain from origin to destination.
The initial objective of automation in the ocean shipping industry, BuyCo concludes, is to make the shipping process more “efficient and easy. The ultimate goal should be to take action towards reducing our CO2 emissions and our footprint on the planet. We should digitize container process management and integrate the whole supply chain into an environmentally sustainable manner.”
The Fourth Greenhouse Gas (GHG)-2020 Study, published by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), “shows that international shipping emits around 1,056 million tons of CO₂ every year, translating into about three percent of the total global emissions. Continuing in the same fashion with neither significant change nor major mitigating action it will see that rate climb to 17 percent by 2050.”
Climate change is “pushing the world towards taking action on mitigation and adaptation,” says BuyCo. “It’s time to work together, multi-laterally, to address climate change and promote cooperation to strengthen climate action.”