Signing of Research Agreement on Fuel Savings by Autonomous Navigation

POS SM and Pan Ocean signed a research agreement for a fuel saving demonstration project through the operation of an autonomous navigation system on the March 14th. A total of five companies participated in this agreement: POS SM, Pan Ocean, KR, Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, and Avikus.

This agreement has great significance in that domestic shipbuilders, an autonomous navigation company, shipping companies and classification societies cooperate together to verify the fuel saving effect of an autonomous navigation system for the first time in the world.

So far, there has been a concept of an optimal voyage route, but it has been difficult to implement such concept in practice because a person has to manually change a ship’s speed and course depending on weather conditions. Therefore, verification of energy saving has been done only through simulations led by shipbuilders or marine equipment manufacturers. From this project, it is expected that more reliable results will be derived through the automatic implementation of the optimal voyage route and speed plan through the autonomous navigation system and verification based on actual ship operation data. This demonstration can be said to be a very meaningful development in the field of eco-friendly and autonomous navigation.

HiNAS 2.0, an autonomous navigation system developed by Avikus, which will be used for this verification project, is a system in which artificial intelligence (AI) integrates information provided from a variety of navigation equipment and sensors to guide the optimal sailing route and perform collision avoidance functions. It is expected that actual fuel savings can be achieved through automatic control of optimal route and speed planning.

Both POS SM and Pan Ocean will provide operating ships and data for this project and conduct a feasibility review on the demonstration process, and Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering will develop a fuel saving verification framework through data analysis. KR will evaluate the developed fuel saving verification framework and conduct a technical review for the stable implementation and operation of HiNAS2.0.

As Pan Ocean is currently carrying out trial operation of rotor sails along with KR, and Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering is currently developing and demonstrating technologies for utilizing eco-friendly solutions, including certification of alternative fuel supply systems such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and ammonia, the industry officials are paying attention to their synergistic effects through collaboration in the future.

Ahn Joong-ho, CEO of Pan Ocean, said, “This joint cooperation will be a meaningful study that can confirm the improvement of operation efficiency of ships and carbon emission reduction using autonomous navigation technology. I expect that this will contribute greatly to achieving the target of 2050 carbon neutrality declared by Pan Ocean."

In response, Kim Myeong-su, CEO of POS SM said, “This joint research agreement will be a meaningful opportunity to present the direction in which ship operation should develop in the future. POS SM will spare no support for the successful implementation of this project through active safety management and technical support throughout the entire process of verifying fuel-saving using autonomous navigation technology.”