Mokpo National Maritime University Achieves 'World's First' Success in Autonomous Ship Collision Avoidance Experiment

Mokpo Maritime University campus Photo by Asia Economy

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Seo Young-seo] Mokpo National Maritime University (President Park Sung-hyun) announced on the 7th that it has achieved the world's first success in an autonomous ship collision avoidance experiment conducted near Gageodo Island, Sinan County, on the 2nd in collaboration with Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd.

This experiment is part of a joint research project conducted by Mokpo National Maritime University and Samsung Heavy Industries (Principal Investigator: Lim Nam-gyun, Department of Navigation). The demonstration was carried out by equipping the autonomous navigation system SAS (Samsung Autonomous Ship) on Mokpo National Maritime University's training ship "Segyero" (Captain Professor Kim Jin-su) and Samsung Heavy Industries' tugboat "SAMSUNG T-8".

While autonomously navigating at speeds up to 14 knots (approximately 26.98 km/h) toward their respective designated destinations on the open sea, the two vessels safely avoided each other at a minimum distance of closest point of approach (DCPA) of 1 nautical mile (about 1.8 km) when meeting head-on, then continued toward their original destinations. They also demonstrated stable autonomous navigation performance such as speed adjustment and course changes during crossing situations.

Park Sung-hyun, President of Mokpo National Maritime University, said, "I am pleased that Mokpo National Maritime University and Samsung Heavy Industries have achieved significant results through joint research in the globally active field of autonomous ships," adding, "We will continue to strive for the advancement of autonomous ship navigation."

Mokpo National Maritime University and Samsung Heavy Industries plan to focus their research and development efforts on the commercialization of autonomous ship navigation systems next year through this world's first autonomous ship performance experiment.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.