Japanese technology company JRCS has announced the upcoming launch of two new products for the maritime sector, including centralised vessel equipment troubleshooting and computer vision-based situational awareness.
JRCS established a Digital Innovation Lab In April 2018 to develop products to utilise technologies such as AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Intelligence of Things), which led to the release of a new line of ‘infinity training’ services last year incorporating MR (Mixed Reality) equipment.
This line of products will now be expanded with the addition of ‘infinity assist’ from the end of May 2020, followed by ‘infinity command’ in July.
The ‘infinity assist’ system is a troubleshooting support platform for ship-based equipment using tablets and Microsoft’s HoloLens technology, aimed for use by both ships’ crews and staff on shore.
The service aims to centralise management of troubleshooting for different types of onboard equipment, providing simplified searchable access to a range of technical information such as manuals and other relevant information.
As maintenance tasks are carried out over time users can create and edit the contents of their troubleshooting library to improve its effectiveness, and can attach additional information such as drawings and pictures to support ongoing activities. Where communications are limited the system can also be used offline by downloading the required troubleshooting contents to tablets.
The other new addition, the ‘infinity command’ system, aims to support safety in vessel operations by detecting and identifying obstacles and small ships or boats by applying computer vision techniques to images obtained from onboard optical cameras, aggregating that data and providing it to the operator.
The technology also includes an annotation function that allows the user to register the status of a traffic route or specified area on a chart, and includes the ability to record information relevant to the navigation of the ship.
JRCS says that its future plans for the service include the introduction of functionality to predict the movements of other ships and obstacles detected on the navigation route and to propose an appropriate route to avoid them if there is a potential impact on the vessel’s journey.
