Enabling Technologies for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships

This paper identifies key technological challenges associated with building and operating Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) and describes how existing and emerging technologies from other domains can contribute to addressing these challenges. The objective is not to provide an exhaustive list of technologies that could be utilized in future MASS, but rather to consider a few key technologies, their limitations and how they can contribute to meeting requirements associated with designing, building and operating MASS. The paper focuses on two aspects of autonomous operations: 1) on-board autonomy; and 2) remote operations. The former considers primarily vessel safety and reliability concerns and the latter deals with issues related to the control of autonomous vessels at remote operations centres (ROC) using a telecommunications infrastructure.