Rolls-Royce has opened a new research facility in Turku, Finland, focusing on technologies to shape the future of an increasingly more autonomous global shipping industry. The new Research & Development Centre for Autonomous Ships includes a Remote and Autonomous Experience Space aimed at showcasing the autonomous ship technologies Rolls-Royce has already introduced as well as those in the development stage.
“There is great global interest in autonomous vehicles and vessels as a future means of transport. The opening of the Rolls-Royce Research & Development Centre for Autonomous Ships here in Turku, a maritime city with a history of technological innovation, will help achieve our goal of digitalising the country’s transport sector,” said Finnish Minister of Transport and Communications Anne Berner.
The new R&D Centre enables Rolls-Royce and its partners to carry out projects focused on autonomous navigation, the development of land-based control centres, and the use of artificial intelligence in future remote and autonomous shipping operations.
The Experience Space includes several interactive tables on which Rolls-Royce can showcase existing and future technologies while aiding the development and introduction of new rules and standards for autonomous shipping.
“The centre allows us to more accurately communicate our capabilities, what we have available today and what will be available tomorrow,” said Karno Tenovuo, Rolls-Royce Senior Vice President, Ship Intelligence. “It will completely focus on the development of solutions capable of smoothing the maritime industry’s transition to the digital age. An autonomous maritime ecosystem will open up unprecedented opportunities.”
It is now exactly six years to the day that Rolls-Royce launched its first-ever autonomous ship development project UXUS (User Experience for Complex Systems), and in acknowledgement of the achievements made to date, Clarkson Research President Dr Martin Stopford gave a keynote speech on Smart Shipping. This was followed by presentations from Google’s Massimo Mascaro, Finferries’ Mats Rosin, One Sea’s Päivi Haikkola, Rolls-Royce’s Oskar Levander and the Finnish Transport Safety Agency’s Tuomas Routa.
