Projects

The VesselAI project will develop a data platform that is capable of processing large amounts of data from various sources in the maritime value chain using artificial intelligence. This will be useful in the work of building digital twins, digital copies of a physical object found in the real world to simulate and predict the vessel's behavior in different scenarios in the ocean space. The research project is part of the EU program Horizon 2020, and 13 European partners collaborate on research and roll-out of big data analysis, artificial intelligence, and high performance (High Performance Computing) for the maritime sector. The project has a total budget of 6 million Euros and runs from 2021 - 2023.

Inland and short sea ships and their ports is a critical part of Europe's transport system. With stricter requirements on decarbonization and reduced noise and pollution from the transport sector, the importance should only increase! However, the convenience and flexibility of road transport still tend to trumph the sustainability goals. The AEGIS project has been selected by the EU Commission to show that autonomous ships and automation in ports can make waterborne transport much more flexible and user oriented, while continuing to reduce the societal and environmental impact of EU transport. This will be the Advanced, Efficient and Green Intermodal Systems - AEGIS.

AUTOSHIP - Autonomous Shipping Initiative for European Waters - aims at speeding-up the transition towards a next generation of autonomous ships in EU. The project will build and operate 2 different autonomous vessels, demonstrating their operative capabilities in Short Sea Shipping and Inland Water Ways scenarios, with a focus on goods mobility.

KONGSBERG Coordinates EU-Funded Project to Enable Autonomous Navigation in Close Proximity. 'Hull to Hull' (H2H) established to develop digital twin technology combining GNSS with 3D modelling for navigation support and autonomy controller input.

MUNIN was an EU project that ran from summer 2012 to summer 2015. The purpose was to do a concept study for a completely unmanned Handymax bulk carrier. The project came right at the start of the great interest that autonomous ship later created, and has published a number of articles and open reports. MARINTEK (now SINTEF Ocean) was technical coordinator of MUNIN.

NAVTOR is the only Norwegian industrial partner in the ENABLE*3 project and is owner of the maritime demonstrator. This demonstrator will explore new, advanced simulation and testing opportunities in the maritime industry through close dialogue and cooperation with partners from the automotive industry in Europe. Methods, processes, references and virtual test benches utilized in the automotive industry are to be adapted to the maritime sector, and the results will be demonstrated and evaluated. Focus will be on knowledge transfer from especially the automotive industry: Early, systematic simulation, testing and validation. This also means looking at the possibility of new types of approval procedures for navigation systems based on scenario simulation adapted from the automotive industry.