By
Rebecca Gibson |
The Finnish Shipowners Association (FSA) has joined the One Sea Eecosystem, which brings together shipbuilding companies, suppliers and technology providers from across Finland to drive digitisation and automation in the passenger shipping and wider marine industries.
Billed as the world’s first autonomous maritime ecosystem, One Sea Ecosystem aims to combine partners’ experience, expertise, advanced research and technological solutions to create an environment suitable for autonomous ships by 2025. The FSA will contribute ‘deep-ranging industry experience’ of 25 shipping companies that operate more than 100 ships.
“Autonomous ships are the future of modern marine traffic,” said Päivi Haikkola, ecosystem lead at One Sea Ecosystem. “By contrast with traditional shipbuilding, autonomous shipping requires an entire ecosystem in which decisions are based on big data, smart algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) and optimisation of the entire value chain. The One Sea Ecosystem has already brought together many of the major players in the fields of marine technology, cargo handling and digital solutions, and we welcome new Nordic and global partners to join the research collaboration.”
Over the next few years, the ecosystem partners will collaborate to explore how data, sensors, connectivity and AI solutions can be implemented to help ship operators with optimising processes, conserving resources and making better and more informed decisions. The ecosystem also aims to develop common interfaces and new technical standards for the solutions it creates.
In addition, companies will also work on creating automation solutions for ships that continue to be operated manually. ABB Marine, for example, has developed ABB Ability Collaborative Operations solutions that already enables real-time monitoring and support for hundreds of ocean-going vessels to make their operations more reliable an energy efficient.
“Automation can bring tremendous benefits to the maritime business, even without looking to completely autonomous ships,” said Kalevi Tervo, global programme manager at ABB. “Our goal is to develop solutions that can help ship operators and crews in their work by, for example, increasing situational awareness far beyond the capabilities of the human senses or traditional instrumentation. As a result, we can improve the safety and efficiency of marine operations already today, as we work towards even more advanced solutions in the future.”
Organisations will be able to test any autonomous maritime solutions or vessels at the One Sea Ecosystem test area, which is located off the west coast of Finland.
“Finnish companies offer a wide variety of solutions that advance the digital transformation in the maritime industry,” said Ulla Lainio, director of Business Finland’s Arctic Maritime and Offshore from Finland Program. “By embracing the possibilities of the industrial internet and advanced connectivity, maritime companies around the world can not only increase performance and optimise processes, but also create entirely new business models. Whether it is data acquisition, analytics, 3D technologies, wireless communications or IT applications, Finland's maritime business and innovation ecosystem can meet any industry need.”