MOL collaborated with Oki Electric Industry (OKI), to launch a joint study on the use of OKI’s bird’s-eye view monitoring system to monitor a 360° field of view around a tugboat. The system was installed on the tugboat Asaka Maru and a preliminary experiment was conducted.
As a tugboat approaches a large ship for assistance, only a small part of the vessel’s hull can be seen from tug’s bridge, with the tugboat relying on instructions through the radio from the pilot on board the target vessel.
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The experiment was done in a situation with OKI’s monitoring system establishing four fish-eye cameras on the mast, and a digital compositing system and display in the bridge, making the captain able to grasp conditions around the tugboat in real time.
This makes it possible for the tug’s operator to objectively recognize the boat’s surrounding situations. The boat can also instinctively grasp its distance from surrounding obstacles and other vessels, and this leads to reducing the risk of an accidental contact with the target vessel and more effectively assisting its safe berthing and unberthing
MOL said.
MOL positions navigation support systems featuring image recognition, under its challenge project, called the ‘Focus Eye’ series, aiming to develop technologies that will enhance safe operations. It focused on OKI’s system as a part of the series, aspiring to advance its initiatives on improving safe operation, by promoting joint development of the system, including a study of ways to adopt it on large vessels.
