SEA.AI and Anschütz are to integrate SEA.AI’s machine vision technology into the Anschütz Autonomics Navigation Suite, adding optical and thermal detection to the situational information used by bridge navigation systems.
Design and validation work on the integration has begun, with the companies aiming to use the technology in autonomous navigation and navigation assistance systems developed in line with the new MASS Code (Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships).
SEA.AI’s AI identifies and classifies objects detected by optical and thermal sensors, including vessels, buoys, floating debris and people in the water.
The technology will add another sensor track to Autonomics alongside radar, electronic navigational charts (ENC) and AIS, which can have limitations when detecting small or low targets, objects at close range, adrift buoys or vessels without active AIS transponders.
The combined system is intended to use the classified targets as part of its situational picture when planning COLREG-compliant collision and grounding avoidance trajectories.
“Seeing pixels is easy. Turning them into a classified object that Autonomics can act on – a vessel, a buoy, a person in the water, before it becomes a risk – is what SEA.AI’s AI does,” said Marcus Warrelmann, CEO, SEA.AI.
“Combine that with Anschütz’s century of experience getting information safely onto the bridge, and collision avoidance can finally act on what it used to miss.”
The partners gave the example of a ferry crossing a crowded strait at night, where an unlit fishing boat close to its track may be difficult for radar to track and may not be fitted with AIS. By incorporating SEA.AI’s classified targets, Autonomics is intended to detect the risk and propose a COLREG-compliant course change for confirmation by the officer on watch.
“With Autonomics, we want to make seafaring safer by providing insightful recommendations and collision avoidance execution assistance based on a clear situation picture to assist and relieve the officers onboard,” said Hans-Christoph Burmeister, Business Development Commercial Markets, Anschütz.
“Reliable detection of and information about small objects, as provided by daylight and infrared cameras as well as SEA.AI’s machine vision technology is the missing link in existing commercial maritime sensor systems that we are about to close. This represents a further step towards a decision-support system that commercial crews can rely on in any situation on a real bridge.”
