Competitions underway for Future Ship Developments and Wide Applications of Remote Technology
Remote Technology to be a Game Changer
In a recent time, remote technology-driven ships are increasingly drawing attentions to their various applicability, empowered by 5G, Big Data, IoT, Sensor Technology, and Artificial Intelligence. Korea’s maritime cluster has jumped into the development race of ambitious commercial future ships since 2019, proposing its remotely operated model ship much bigger than other ship models in projects carried out by Norway, the United Kingdom and Japan.
5G Era to Expedite Collaborations between Shipbuilding and Telecommunications industries
The Hyundai Heavy Industry (HHI) just formed a partnership with a giant telecommunications company, Korea Telecom (KT), in 2019 to accelerate the 5G-based digital transformation in shipbuilding and ship safety control.
Moreover, the Samsung Heavy Industry (SHI), collaborating with SK Telecom (SKT), made a big stride to successfully run a remotely operated model ship in a sea trial in the last year.
Technological Convergence by Remote technology
In this light, remote technology is expected to see heated development competitions among global shipyards, equipment manufacturers, and software companies. This game changer has already been applied to many areas in the sea, enabling further convergence of different technologies in different industries.
For example, the remote technology has proved their effectiveness in scientific researches of marine ecosystem (e.g., 3 metre Metocean buoy from AXYS Technologies), hydrographic surveys, remotely operated tugboats (e.g., Netherlands-based KOTUG), seafloor mapping, subsea measurements, underwater pipeline inspections, underwater search and rescue activities(e.g., the retrieval of a voyage data recorder by Ocean Infinity), underwater power cable installations, and defense capacity buildings of the navy (e.g., the Sea Hunter of the United States).
Big 3 to Create New Trajectory
In Korea the coastal water off the city of Ulsan where HHI is located will become an integrated sea trial location for remotely controlled and autonomous ships.
This jump start of Korea’s Big 3 ship yards to develop unmanned ships will likely change the global trajectory of the maritime industry in the near future.
