Wärtsilä aids semi-autonomous sailing

Fully retrofittable, Wärtsilä’s SmartMove Suite is designed to provide existing vessels with next-generation capabilities to improve safety, efficiency and productivity on the water. The technology enables navigation officers to perform at a higher level.

“Advanced decision support systems, such as Wärtsilä SmartMove, bring value because they can automate the repetitive tasks, such as docking on repeated itineraries, allowing the navigation officers to focus their bandwidth on the parts of the operation,” said John J Marshall, senior business development manager, Automation & DP; Americas, Wärtsilä Voyage. “This is not about going captain-free, rather, enhancing the capabilities of onboard crew as they traverse shuttle routes, congested or restricted areas.”

Sensor suite included

Wärtsilä Voyage provides a standard hardware setup with redundant controllers and displays, along with a sensor suite (comprising gyro, MRU, wind, and GNSS sensors). This is connected to a single digital platform through which five software products are available: SmartDock, SmartTransit, SmartEntry, SmartPredict, and SmartDrive. The core blocks of software (including controllers, sensor processing, Thruster Allocation Logic and track follow) are sourced from Wärtsilä Voyage’s Dynamic Positioning portfolio.

The first order was placed by American Steamship Company (ASC), a subsidiary of Rand-ASC Holdings LLC, and has been installed on the MV American Courage, a 194m Great Lakes self-unloading bulk freighter with a cargo carrying capacity of 24,300 gross tonnage. The Wärtsilä solution has been successfully tested on the MV American Courage since March 2020.