Hyundai Heavy Industries Group (HHI Group) has been granted a new approval in principle (AIP) by class society ABS for four areas of autonomous vessel functionality: navigation, machinery health management, fire fighting management and network infrastructure.
Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE), HHI Group’s shipbuilding division, has also obtained approvals for its machinery automation system, HiCBM; an onboard integrated safety control system, HiCAMS; and an autonomous ship integrated platform, Pont.OS.
“HHI Group is a step closer to developing fully autonomous ships by receiving AIPs for not only autonomous navigation systems but also condition based maintenance (CBM) for machinery, onboard safety management and infrastructure,” said Kim Sung-Joon, Senior Executive Vice President and CTO of KSOE.
“We will lead the market by completing commercialisation and demonstration ahead of time in consideration of the IMO’s regulations on autonomous vessels.”
Avikus, a HHI Group company specialising in autonomous navigation, has already obtained approval from ABS for its autonomous navigation system HiNAS 2.0, which will be a standard fit on all newbuild vessels at HHI Group beginning from next year.
The HiCBM and HiCAMS applications use Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to diagnose the condition of mechanical equipment or identify and manage situations such as fires without human intervention.
Pont.OS, is an open platform used to integrate and control the various autonomous ship functions and will provide the foundational infrastructure for autonomous and remote operation of the ships, HHI says.
