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MAROFF-2-Maritim virksomhet og offsh-2

Scalable Autonomy for Urban Passenger Ferries

Alternative title: Skalerbar Autonomi for Urbane Passasjerferger

Awarded: NOK 15.9 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

327714

Project Period:

2021 - 2024

Organisation:

The urban mobility solutions of tomorrow are green, small-scale and operate on-demand. To be economically sustainable and scalable, they also need to operate unmanned. As most of the world’s population live near water, zero-emission, autonomous passenger ferries can be a solution that meets global urban and environmental needs. Together with our partners NTNU, Torghatten, Marine Technologies and SentiSystems, Zeabuz will develop solutions that enable the Norwegian maritime sector to play a central role in this emerging industry. The project has two main aims: Firstly to develop a safe, robust and scalable autonomy system for urban passenger ferries, and secondly to design the technical prerequisites and a suitable business model for delivering Autonomy-as-a-Service. The key planned activities are: • Design a complete autonomy hardware package including a new perception sensor rig that is modular, robust and able to sense all relevant objects in the ferry operational area. • Develop systems and algorithms for data management to handle the vast amounts of sensor data collected during ferry operation, as well as methods for training the autonomy algorithms based on this data. • Develop a novel autonomous control system that can sense and understand the ferry surroundings, make navigational plans and evasive actions based on this understanding, and control the ferry motion from quay to quay. • Develop an online risk management system that can reason about risks and make strategic decisions for the ferry operation. This could, for instance, be whether to leave the quay or not, or whether to abort a transit and return to the previous quay. • Develop concepts for delivery of Autonomy-as-a-Service, including business model design and piloting with customers.

Zeabuz aims to revitalize urban waterways – our historic and freely available infrastructure – with zero emission, autonomous passenger ferries. This research project aims to develop new innovations that will enable this vision and a large-scale, global rollout of waterborne, future-proof mobility systems. Part 1 of the proposed innovation is to industrialize, robustify and improve currently available autonomy research, while integrating new elements needed in an industrial application. This will be a targeted effort towards relatively simple operations consisting of shortcuts across rivers, canals, and harbour basins where there is limited traffic. The proposed autonomy platform is comprised of a perception sensor rig, situational awareness, motion planning, motion control and automation, data processing, online risk management and necessary ferry system interfaces. To succeed with value creation based on Part 1 of the innovation, future operators of such ferry systems must be empowered to confidently choose the Zeabuz autonomy platform. Part 2 of the innovation is, therefore, to develop Autonomy-as-a-Service (AaaS) as an innovation both in terms of delivery process and business model. This will be an end-to-end solution for autonomy, where Zeabuz will install, commission, operate, monitor, and maintain the autonomy platform throughout the system lifecycle. The key AaaS infrastructure elements are onboard and onshore data management, a database and processes for algorithm training, testing and validation, a life-cycle software management system, a remote support centre with human operators, and redundant and secure real-time communication. The realization and scaling of the Zeabuz mobility systems is a landmark interdisciplinary effort, requiring R&D within industrial design, business modelling, human-machine interaction, artificial intelligence, optimization, nonlinear control theory, and data management.

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Funding scheme:

MAROFF-2-Maritim virksomhet og offsh-2