Rolls-Royce and Svitzer in remote operation first

The 28m Svitzer Hermod safely conducted several manoeuvres, controlled by a captain from the vessel’s remote base at Svitzer headquarters. The vessel was berthed alongside the quay, undocked, turned 360°, and piloted towards the Svitzer headquarters before docking again. The companies have signed an agreement to continue to test remote and autonomous operations for vessels.

Mikael Makinen, president – marine, Rolls-Royce, said: “We’ve been saying for a couple of years that a remotely operated commercial vessel would be in operation by the end of the decade. Thanks to a unique combination of Svitzer’s operational knowledge and our technological expertise, we have made that vision a reality much sooner than we anticipated.”

Kristian Brauner, chief technology officer, Svitzer said; “Svitzer is actively engaging in projects that allow us to explore innovative ways to improve the safety and efficiency of towage operations to benefit our customers and our crews. With its direct impact on our customer performance, operational cost and environmental footprint vessel efficiency remains a main driver now and going forward.”

Speaking during a press conference after the announcement, Kevin Daffey, director engineering & technology – marine, Rolls-Royce, said that the company had another 18 months of work to carry out with Svitzer on automating some elements of towing operations.

“We have lots of ideas about how a fully automated tug, with no wheelhouse, might work,” Daffey said. “But the Svitzer Hermod is just a demonstrator: this is about showing some of the core technologies.”

The Svitzer Hermod, was built in Turkey at the Sanmar yard in 2016 to a Robert Allan ship design. It is equipped with a Rolls-Royce Dynamic Positioning System, the key link to the remote controlled system. The vessel is also equipped with a pair of MTU 16V4000 M63 diesel engines from Rolls-Royce, each rated 2000 kW at 1,800rpm.

The vessel features a range of sensors which combine different data inputs using advanced software to give the captain an enhanced understanding of the vessel and its surroundings. The data is transmitted reliably and securely to a remote operating centre (ROC), from where the captain controls the vessel. The ROC was designed with input from experienced captains to place the different system components in the optimum place to give the master confidence and control.

Throughout the demonstration the vessel had a fully qualified captain and crew on board to ensure safe operation in the event of a system failure.