While the voting procedure for the 2018 SAFETY4SEA Awards is open, Mr Esa Jokioinen, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Ship Intelligence, Rolls-Royce talks about the ‘Intelligent Awareness system’ for which Rolls- Royce has been shortlisted in the ‘Technology’ category alongside a number of other distinguished nominees. As explained, one of the benefits of the Intelligent Awareness is that it brings situational awareness to Vessel Bridge allowing the captain to shuffle amongst Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Precision mode. Also, the technology can be used by the organizations ashore, enabling advanced fleet management. Overall, the system is a ‘fundamental building block of autonomous ships in the future’, Mr Jokioinen adds, encouraging the industry to think proactively and explore new technologies.
SAFETY4SEA: Your organization has been shortlisted for the 2018 SAFETY4SEA Awards in the ‘Technology’ category alongside a number of other distinguished nominees. What is the background behind this nomination/shortlisting?
Esa Jokioinen: In March 2018, we launched our Intelligent Awareness system, which will revolutionize safety at sea and is truly an exciting technology that vessels around the world set to benefit from. The system enhances safety of vessels by giving the captain situational awareness of surroundings, like never before, through intelligent data fusion.
The system combines state-of-the-art technology including advanced LIDAR, radar, AIS with cameras and advanced software, much of it new to the marine commercial sector. Apart from hardware such as the sensors and camera’s, this also comprises highly sophisticated software algorithms with machine learning and intelligent fusion of data allowing the system to detect and identify, both moving and static objects in vessel surroundings.
Rolls-Royce Intelligent awareness system will also be a fundamental building block of autonomous ships in the future. However, it became quickly apparent that the advisory version of the system could be utilized today as a stand-alone system for enhancing safety at sea and so was made commercially available this year.
S4S: What is the key feedback from your existing & prospective clients on the barriers and drivers towards a more technology friendly future?
E.J.: The drivers for new technology are safer and/or more efficient operations. One of the main industry challenges, that can be seen to slow down the implementation of new tech, is lack of standards and diversity of solutions in ships to day. This introduces some challenge in efficient integration of new technology, especially if that is to be retrofitted into an existing ship.
S4S: Do you have any new projects on the pipeline and/or plans, related with your safety performance that you would like to share with the industry?
E.J.: Our new Intelligent Awareness system for vessels has been launched, but we are expanding on this and enhancing functionalities day by day. Already we are confident that it shall boost the safety performance of our industry. Watch keeping today on the vessel bridge predominantly relies on human senses but risks such as human fatigue prevail and visibility is often restricted particularly at night, during adverse weather or in congested ports. Annually more than 100 people lose their lives in maritime accidents, 3000 ships are involved in incidents each year (3145 in 2017) and almost 90% of marine accidents are caused by human error.
Intelligent Awareness brings reliable situational awareness to Vessel Bridge in the form of intuitive user interfaces, allowing the captain to shuffle amongst four user modes; Virtual Reality 2D and 3D modes, Augmented Reality mode and Precision mode. The IA data can also be streamed to head office onshore, enabling advanced fleet management. By enhancing vessel bridge visibility like never before, we anticipate Intelligent Awareness to revolutionize safety at sea and become a new ‘standard’ monitor for any captain.
S4S: If you could change one thing about the shipping industry, what would it be and why?
E.J.: In general the industry has a good safety record but that does not mean that things could not be further improved. For many safety related improvements, regulatory enforcement seems to be the main way in for new tech – unless there are other reasons from the customer perspective to underpin and pay extra for safety beyond only compliance, such as in the O&G as passenger ship markets. In the end of the day the name of the game is “compliance at lowest cost” for many of the players. The industry should proactively explore what new technology can offer for this industry. There isn’t really a good way to measure and quantify safety level of ships today and I’d believe that would be needed in the industry.
S4S: What is your key message for enhancing safety culture onboard?
E.J.: I’d like to encourage the industry to think proactively and explore what new technology, such as the intelligent awareness system can achieve. It is of course obvious that any single technology will not bring benefits unless the use of it is deeply embedded in the organization. The safety improvements must be approached holistically.
You may cast your vote for Rolls-Royce’s Intelligent Awareness system at 2018 SAFETY4SEA Awards dedicated webpage till 7th of September 2018!
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
