New AI tool aims to facilitate polar ship navigation

The system, being developed by the BAS AI Lab, will be used by the crew of the UK’s polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough to make decisions about route planning.

It will recommend the fastest and most fuel-efficient routes between two locations taking into account all the polar conditions such as sea ice, ocean dynamics and weather. The Captain and officers can evaluate the options provided and select the best route.

The project team has developed algorithms that make use of a wide variety of existing environmental datasets and forecasts, to develop a navigational route planner that updates as conditions change, just like an in-car navigation system.

The tool will be able to look ahead and predict environmental conditions over an entire research season of up to six months, allowing long-term seasonal route-planning.

We’ve created something that is very similar to the kind of in-car navigation system like Google maps that many of us use already, but with the added complication that in the ocean there are no roads, and the conditions are changing constantly, which affects the routes between destinations

said Professor Maria Fox, from the BAS AI Lab who leads the project.

The first stage of the project is to develop a tool which can optimise route planning for carbon efficiency. This route planner is therefore a key piece in the puzzle in helping BAS achieve its aim of being net zero by 2040. Integration with on-board systems on the SDA began in November this year.

As the tool develops, the team will integrate more live data from the ship, such as speed and fuel requirements in different conditions, to refine the model and improve route efficiency even more. The team also intends eventually to integrate science and logistics tasks into the planning tool.