Stena enlists Rolls-Royce for ‘intelligent awareness’ system

The system is an important stepping stone towards the development of remote controlled or autonomous vessels, and builds on work already undertaken as part of the Rolls-Royce led Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications (AAWA) initiative. Last year AAWA began testing sensor fusion onboard Finferries’ double-ended ferry Stella.

Harry Robertsson, technical director at Stena Line’s technical division Stena Teknik, said: “This project gives us an opportunity to explore how new technologies mcan be integrated with the systems we already have on-board and to provide a more informed view of a vessel’s surroundings in an accessible and user friendly way. This will give our crew an enhanced decision support tool, increasing the safety of our vessels.”

Asbjørn Skaro, director digital & systems – marine, Rolls-Royce, said: “We have been exploring and testing how to combine sensor technologies effectively and affordably for some time. Pilot projects such as this will allow us to see how they can be best adapted to the needs of a commercial vessel and its crew and allow us to develop a product which better serves both.”

Rolls-Royce expects to be able to undertake an approval of concept and make its intelligent awareness product commercially available later in 2017. The company has previously stated its ambition of having a remote-controlled ship in commercial use by the end of the decade.