[Square] The Era of Autonomous Ships is Coming

Eom Gidu, Vice Minister of Oceans and Fisheries

On weekend afternoons, a spectacular scene unfolds at Sejong City Lake Park. Although it is a pilot operation, freshly baked pizza from a nearby pizzeria is delivered by drone. While drones fill the sky, autonomous tourist shuttles operate between Sejong City Lake Park and Central Park on the ground, undergoing demonstration runs. Truly, the era of autonomous mobility systems that require no human piloting has arrived.

Just as innovation is transforming the sky and land, a revolutionary wave is also sweeping through maritime transport systems. This is the autonomous ship capable of navigating without a crew. Autonomous ships search for optimal routes by considering information such as the location of surrounding vessels and maritime obstacles like islands or reefs, weather conditions including wave height and currents, and sudden variables like typhoons. As a result, they can reduce accidents caused by human error, which accounts for a large portion of maritime incidents, and maximize operational efficiency. Additionally, big data and artificial intelligence (AI)-based optimal maintenance and ship inspections ensure the vessel's safety. Furthermore, through integration with smart ports, the entire process of safely docking ships and loading and unloading cargo becomes automated, faster, and more accurate. In the long term, electric propulsion systems, which are easier to control and manage, will become the main power source for autonomous ships, contributing to the government's key national agenda of realizing a carbon-neutral society.

Countries around the world are fiercely competing to take the lead in the emergence of autonomous ships that will change the maritime transport landscape. Rolls-Royce in the UK succeeded in the world's first remote-controlled ship demonstration in 2017 and has declared its goal to develop a fully unmanned autonomous ship that requires no remote control by 2030. Norway's Kongsberg, together with Yara International, plans to develop a fully unmanned autonomous ship for ocean voyages targeting commercialization by 2035. To this end, Yara is conducting a project to develop a 120TEU-class nearshore autonomous container ship, aiming for launch in 2022. The Japanese shipping company NYK tested a ship with autonomous navigation functions in 2019 and plans to deploy it on actual routes from 2023 onwards.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries of Korea established the "Marine and Fisheries Smartization Promotion Strategy" in November 2019, aiming to capture 50% of the global smart ship market by 2030. In June 2020, together with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, it launched the "Autonomous Ship Technology Development Consortium" to actively promote autonomous ship technology development. The government plans to invest approximately 160 billion KRW by 2025 to develop an autonomous navigation system with intelligent route decision-making capabilities and will showcase an autonomous ship developed with domestic technology at the "Ulsan Autonomous Ship Pilot Operation Center" in 2024.

The government also plans to concurrently revise laws and regulations to ensure smooth actual operation of autonomous ships. Although various standards and systems related to autonomous ships are being discussed at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) level, the Korean government is proactively preparing a "Regulatory Innovation Roadmap for Autonomous Ships."

The emergence of autonomous ships, which integrate core digital technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and artificial intelligence (AI), and the resulting revolutionary changes in the shipping and port logistics ecosystem have become an unstoppable trend. As key products installed on ships merge with intelligent automation platforms and system-level integrated control becomes possible, new markets related to autonomous ships are being created in numerous fields including port services, maritime security and communications, and unmanned maintenance systems. Amid the changes driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the advent of autonomous ships can be an important milestone for Korea to advance as a global maritime powerhouse.

Um Ki-du, Vice Minister of Oceans and Fisheries

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