China's Effort in USV R&D

By Li Qin

On May 16, the autonomous navigation test ship “Zhi Teng”successfully demonstrated autonomous navigation and autonomous collision avoidance, which was the first time in China. Industry experts say the demonstration marks significant progress in the development of autonomous navigation ships as the highest level of intelligent ships in China. The phased intelligence of large ships, the remote control and autonomous navigation of small ships, different directions of intelligent ship development are gradually clear and extended in China.

Aim at the Direction of Autonomous Navigation

“Zhi Teng” is the first autonomous navigation test ship in China to meet the IMO MASS requirements for autonomous navigation test ships. It was built by 704 Research Institute of China Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Group Co., Ltd.,Institute of Water Transport Science under the Ministry of Transport and Qingdao Science and Technology Co.,Ltd., and its core equipment autonomous intelligent navigation system was developed by the 704 Institute. The"Zhi Teng" is 21m long and 5.4m wide,and has a design speed of 14 knots.It is equipped with the intelligent situational awareness system,autonomous navigation decision system and autonomous driving control system necessary for ocean-going autonomous navigation ships as well as the shipshore cooperative communication system and big data system. The shorebased operation and control center has been built synchronously, with autonomous navigation, autonomous collision avoidance, underwater collision avoidance, autonomous berthing and unberthing and remote control functions. At present, it has met the requirements of “periodic unmanned ship” in the third stage of MASS. In the future, it can further meet the completely autonomous functional requirements of the fourth class of MASS ships. The subsequent technology will be applied to 300TEU,500TEU and 800TEU autonomous navigation container ships.

Wu Xiaofeng, head of ISO/TC8 intelligent shipping road map,and engineer of the International Maritime and Standardization Research Department of the China Shipbuilding Information Center, said that from the data and pictures,the "Zhi Teng" is a platform based on the "boat" and from the capability of the ship, although the scope of operation is not necessarily limited to inland river, it should be more advantageous in the operation of inland or coastal areas, such as better coverage of wireless network signals, and the cost of remote data transmission can be controlled at a more economical level.From this point of view, the development and verification of functions such as remote control, autonomous navigation and other functions carried out in the inland rivers or coastal areas are significant attempts. Unmanned ships are divided into remote control ships and autonomous navigation ships, European smart ship R&D focuses on the sector.They prefer to start with small ships (such as tugs, ferries), and develop technologies such as long-range control, autonomous route planning and autonomous collision avoidance. The test of the 85m long ferry“Folgefonn” auto-berth system with predefined track and heading position controlled by the automatic controller of the Vaszilla dynamic positioning system succeeded in November last year. The entire berthing process from leaving the terminal and leaving the port and heading to the next berthing port to arriving at the port was automated without human intervention. In June 2017, Rolls and Royce also showed a remote control merchant vessel, the 28m-long "Svitzer Hermod" tug with a remote control system using the Rolls and Royce power positioning system as the key equipment, realized intelligent control of berthing, unlocking and 360-degree rotation.

In recent years, the development of intelligent ships in China has been accelerated. The two large delivered intelligent ships "Dazhi" and "Mingyuan"are highly intelligent manned ocean-going ships. In the aspect of unattended surface vehicle (USV), China has also carried out R&D, e.g., USVs of the first USV manufacturer, Zhuhai Yunzhou Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., are mainly used in water quality monitoring, hydrological surveying and mapping, nuclear radiation monitoring and hydrological research and other fields. On May 10 this year, Zhuhai Yunzhou Intelligent and China Telecom Zhuhai Branch signed the first strategic cooperation agreement on the application of 5G+ Tiantong No.1 satellite aviation and aerospace integrated USV to develop aviation and aerospace integrated USV used in the national water pollution detection service. Industry insiders said that at present, China's autonomous navigation ships still have a long way to go before commercial applications.

Multipartite Support for Development

In order to provide support for R&D of various intelligent ships, a lot of work has been done in China in recent years in the formulation of intelligent ship standards and the construction of experimental sites.

On May 8 this year, the intelligent ship “Standard Twin” International Joint Research Project, launched by the China Shipbuilding Information Center, was officially kicked off. Wu Xiaofeng said that the significance of“Standard Twin” is to create a dynamic representation system described by standard terms embedded in the whole life cycle of the product, so that standard users and managers can accurately identify the standardization degree,standard rationality and advanced nature of the object. The development of the project plays a positive role in promoting cross-field cooperation and supporting the development of intelligent ship and shipping industry technology with standardization work.

In addition, the construction of USV experimental site in China has also achieved initial results. Last year,the Intelligent Shipping Technology Innovation and Comprehensive Experimental Base, jointly built by the Institute of Water Transport Science under the Ministry of Transport and Intelligent Navigation (Qingdao)Technology Co., Ltd., was officially launched. The base will build the intelligent shipping technology equipment R&D center, the intelligent shipping technology equipment comprehensive test site, the international standard marine test site, the intelligent shipping technology equipment industrialization center, the unattended transport ship control center,the intelligent shipping standardization training center and so on in Qingdao.At the end of 2017, Zhuhai Wanshan launched the construction of the first USV marine test site in Asia. The test site can carry out third-party testing services for domestic and foreign scientific research institutions, enterprises and institutions in autonomous perception, obstacle avoidance, remote control, collaborative control and other autonomous shiprelated projects. The two intelligent ship experimental bases in Qingdao and Zhuhai, one in the south and one in the north, echo each other, providing a powerful experimental site support for the USV R&D in China.

The Guidelines on the Development of Intelligent Shipping jointly issued by seven departments created conditions for technical application, verification and optimization of the development of various intelligent ships. Wu Xiaofeng said: after all, the technology R&D should be market-oriented, and intelligent ship technology needs a large number of application cases for verification, performance evaluation and design and development iterations. It is of great positive significance to promote official business ships to take the lead in the application of intelligent technology and equipment as proposed in the Guidelines and will provide more real ship verification opportunities for the development of intelligent ships, including USV.