Samsung Heavy Industries reports that it has completed a 1,500km trial voyage to verify the operation of its latest autonomous navigation technology on a 15,000 TEU container ship.
The journey took place from June 26 to July 1, using Samsung’s independently developed Remote Autonomous Navigation System (SAS) and Smart Ship System (SVESSEL) on the container ship, built at Geoje Shipyard in Korea. The vessel travelled the 1,500km route from Geoje to Kaohsiung in Taiwan, via the southern Korean island of Jeju.
This demonstration test examined the operation of autonomous navigation technologies incorporating data from AIS, radar and camera sensors, which accurately identified more than 9,000 obstacles such as ships and buoys within a radius of 50 kilometres during operation.
The vessel was also able to navigate and reroute to avoid 90 potential encounters with other sailing ships. Samsung says that the choices made by the autonomous navigation system were more than 90% consistent with routes chosen by a human navigator working with the project in the same situations.
