Integrerte Maritime Autonome Transportsystemer (IMAT)

The project IMAT, Integrated Maritime Autonomous Transport Systems, has now come to an end. The project has had its challenges along the way, among other things, the Covid pandemic has stopped us to carry out physical gatherings along the way and hiring service personnel for installations has also been more demanding than planned. But in the end, after a five-month postponement of the project, we were able to carry out both demonstrations and installation of the necessary technology that was required in the project. IMAT have installed and integrated two radars, MBR communication system, a camera, AIS base station, wind sensors, as well as situation understanding software in the form of C-SCOPE has been installed at the Technical Operation Centre in Trondheim. Another results are development of functionality in to the Local Information Center (OceanInfo). The project has kept steady progress; however, we have had to postpone a number of tasks along the way while waiting for installations to be put in place, which was necessary to get it all operational. During the project we have participated in many conferences and seminars, we have had our own webinar where we have presented results from the project, and we have visited both traffic centres (VTS) and ports where we have gained knowledge about the development of autonomy for traffic control. In addition, we have had a good dialogue with several large EU projects such as VesselAI, Autoship and AEGIS, with other national research council-supported projects such as AutoSafe, Maritime Data Space and SFI Autoship, and have also strongly linked ourselves to the Fjordlab development which is the forerunner to the Ocean Space Center. In parallel with this, we have published papers and featured in many different forums. Our own final webinar was arranged on 19.5.22, where both the project's goals and results from demonstrations were presented. As a summarizing factor from the project, the value of connecting industrial companies with research, as well as with future operators of autonomous vessels, and with our reference group in the Norwegian Coastal Administration and the Port of Trondheim has been particularly useful when the requirements for infrastructure, information, traffic and control rooms have been defined. IMAT has integrated various technological data sources together for increased situational awareness, which also provides an extra benefit in the form of increased security as data is compiled from several sources. It can be said that this project, together with several others, helps to secure the technical installations that will eventually be installed on the vessels. For example, most of the technologies that are currently installed on board Yara Birkeland had their test period in Trondheimsfjorden before they were put on board Yara Birkeland. Future goals are that this test infrastructure will be further developed, new tests carried out, and that we thus have a reliable and robust test environment that will give a competitive advantage. IMAT has aimed to see increased benefit from land-based infrastructure and has therefore been an important contribution to the development of integrated maritime autonomous transport systems.

The IMAT project has been an important site for Kongsberg Seatex and partners. New technology developed need a test period before commercialisation, a test site will give added value in the validation period. The development of the Trondheimsfjorden Test Area for Autonomous Ships is important in that sense. In IMAT, the interfaced land-based situational awareness based on camera and radar sensors to a Vessel Traffic System has been achievements that will be further exploited to become new products, or solutions to be integrated in to existing. Fusion methods where radars and cameras have been tested, that are valuable in product development for Kongsberg Seatex. Work has been done on physical installation of technology, data collection, data analysis, machine learning, sensor fusion and cross product interfacing. This have given a unique opportunity to be able to move products developed for vessels onto the shore side and interface with VTS, outside of normal scope for product development at Seatex. This will be further explored as opportunities, where also a closer collaboration with Kongsberg Norcontrol is one option for technological growth, where products and solutions from the two partners can give new business opportunities. New functions were developed and tested through KNC’s product development teams where identified, user stories were given as input to the development teams and implemented through agile SW development methods. What KNC learned through this session will be further developed and implemented into baseline product and used in future deliveries for ROC. For Massterly, an operator of autonomous vessels, the project has been important for testing technology to be used at a ROC, as well as technology to gain a higher situational awareness to be used for a safe operation of an autonomous vessel. Near future is for Massterly the establishment of a ROC in Horten to operate ASKO and Yara Birkeland vessels. Results will be further explored in the ongoing EUs project - Autoship. The sensor package from the ship together with land-based infrastructure will give the operators in the ROC better situational awareness. The demonstrations and test in IMAT gave important insight about how to configure and setup C-Scope for ROC operators. The functionality developed for interface for ship sensors was demonstrated as a pilot in this project. Further development is need to “productify” the solution. For SINTEF and NTNU the IMAT project have been important in the process of developing solutions for autonomous shipping. IMAT supports the development of Trondheimsfjorden Testa Area for Autonomous ships, which is also part of the development of the Ocean Space Centre and Fjordlab. The technology and the infrastructure developed in IMAT is important for future research and will be used in ongoing and upcoming projects.

Prosjektet skal identifisere krav til landbasert teknologi og systemer når autonome transportløsninger skal gjennomføres i et vanlig maritimt trafikkbilde med konvensjonelle fartøy i kommersiell fart, rutegående fartøy og fritidsfartøy. Oppgaven til den landbaserte infrastrukturen er primært å opprettholde kontroll og sikkerhet. IMAT vil definere og teste ut den landbaserte infrastrukturen som er nødvendig for å gjennomføre en sikker og effektiv autonom operasjon. Dette med utgangspunkt i at den landbaserte infrastrukturen skal bidra med tilstrekkelig informasjon og kontrollmulighet, uavhengig av det autonome fartøyet. Dette betyr ikke at prosjektet har som mål å erstatte alle fartøyssensorer med landbasert infrastruktur, men derimot å gjøre transportsystemet mer robust og sikkert, hvor også de forskjellige kontrollsenterene vil være inkludert i prosessen. Innovasjonen består i å videreutvikle og anvende eksisterende teknologi til å lage en landbasert sensor og kommunikasjons infrastruktur som støtter operasjonen av et autonomt fartøy, utarbeide funksjonalitet til LMC og SCC, samt utarbeide prosedyrer for samvirke mellom de forskjellige aktørgruppene som inngår i operasjonen av et fartøy. Konseptet representerer et vesentlig skritt i forhold til "state of the art" for dagens løsninger, og legger samtidig grunnlaget for at Norge skal være verdensledende innen autonome transportsystemer. Autonome transportsystemer vil i økende grad innføres i bransjen. Norge og norsk industri har gode forutsetninger for å være ledende innen det maritime segmentet for dette. Verdiskapingen ligger i hovedsak i å åpne et større marked for løsninger som tilbys i dag. Verdiskapingspotensialet henger sammen med ny omsetning i et voksende og nytt marked. Med en maritim næring i rask endring er det viktig at norsk industri er teknologisk ledende. IMAT vil medvirke til å oppnå dette målet.