Remotely Piloted Vessels, Singlehanders, and RAM

[thinwater]

Please correct where I am am wrong. I'm just daydreaming here.


USCG is approving some RPVs and the current policy is that they show RAM (restricted ability to maneuver) lights.

• Where is the line drawn between a RPV that can lose coms and a singlehander that is napping? Radar watch and alarm? Discuss.
• Should be "as safe as manned vessel." [No one can fall off, boats on autopilot are predictable, and unpredictable course changes are the primary hazard off shore. If lit as RAM, you know it's not turning.] Discuss.

It strikes me the that inshore and offshore safety requirements are very different.



Please read this before responding. Good discussion. https://mlaus.org/wp-content/uploads...9-OCT-2017.pdf


BTW, this is just for fun. I don't have an ax to grind or fixed opinion. I've never taken more than 15-20 minute cat naps off shore and I didn't love it, but it felt safer than sleep deprivation. It just seems to me that at some point, as elctronics improve, this becomes a continuum.

[Breaking Waves]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Discuss.

If this is a 'remotely' piloted vessel, with watchkeepers who can see and hear in real-time, I could think that it does not matter much if they are sitting in some container in Arizona or are physically on the bridge/engine room.

I can imagine you would want some standard for the reliability of the remote connection. It is never going to be 100% but **** happens even with physically present watchkeepers. So some level of 'high' reliability is probably sufficient. And some standards for the level of sight and hearing fidelity - I could imagine you might well be able to achieve higher than 'naked (or 7x50) human eye thru bridge windows' fidelity with good sensors.

(for any significant length voyage) I suspect you need engineers physically on board in any case, because **** breaks and the ship owners don't want their expensive vessels going missing from broken **** when a relatively inexpensive (compared to the vessel) engineer could have fixed it.

It gets stickier when you move to autonomous operation, without humans in or on the loop. Current regs would seem to require humans in or on the loop and I personally believe we have enough evidence to think that current AI are not competent enough to want that in complex or cluttered operating environments, which pretty much all are at least at the beginning and end of the voyages. I suppose I could imagine Having human's required in the loop for the complex parts and then autonomous during the deep blue parts. But we would still need new regs crafted to define the necessary competence and operating envelope of the autonomous operation.

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Please read this before responding. Good discussion. https://mlaus.org/wp-content/uploads...9-OCT-2017.pdf

I don't trust anyone controlling a ship from the Death Star.

[CFS Klopas]

Autonomous boats in US waters are already here and not just for testing.

https://www.usgs.gov/news/media-advi...shery-research

[Breaking Waves]

Originally Posted by CFS Klopas

Autonomous boats in US waters are already here and not just for testing.

Their website suggests these are "human on the loop" remotely piloted (see quotes below), rather than as fully autonomous. It would be interesting to know what sort of USCG approval/exceptions have been made for these vessels. They are small enough that they are unlikely to cause much damage in a collision but that does not exempt them from colregs.

"Autonomy
Saildrone USVs are under the constant supervision of a human pilot via satellite and navigate autonomously from prescribed waypoint to waypoint, accounting for wind and currents, while staying within a user-defined safety corridor
Safety at sea
To further ensure safe operation, each USV is equipped with an automatic identification system (AIS) transceiver, navigation lights, radar reflector, high-visibility wing colors, and four onboard cameras; safety is a top priority, and Saildrone is proud of its strong track record of safe operations"

[Clivevon]

I guess in future ships will have a human pilot in & out of port & a machine doing the rest?

[ArmyDaveNY]

This is a very interesting discussion, and applies to society in general as well as specifically to the marine environment. First, we must recognize that the laws that address such things as automation will always be behind the technology. It has always been that way and will always be that way.

The next area that comes to mind will be the inevitable lawsuits. At some point something will happen. Regardless of whether or not the technology failed, something will happen and there will be a lawsuit. This will take a number of years to sort out and there will be the inevitable changes to laws and regulations.

As far as having a human in the loop, this is not a panacea. We have autonomous vehicles on the roads with humans in the driver's seat, and things still happen. There will never, ever, be a person will be able to pay attention 100% of the time to a computer screen. Whether this person is in a tank looking through their periscope, in front of a radar screen, in a fox hole, in a cockpit, on the bridge, etc. it doesn't matter. Yes, there will be periods where attention is given all the time, but once the tasks at hand are accomplished (think exiting a port or taking off), then it is human nature to be distracted. It should also be noted that studies have confirmed this.

What will likely happen, is that there will be sensors that provide alerts, and a human will be expected to be in the loop, occasionally checking things. I think it will end up similar in nature to commercial aviation. The systems will eventually become pretty reliable, and humans will be somewhere in the loop to take over if needed.

I also think that this technology will eventually filter down to the average user, much like a lot of technology filters down to the general aviation community.

[guyrj33]

Remotely piloted vessels, aircraft and cars are something we as a society can chose to allow or disallow as we see fit.
We do not have to accept their existence as inevitable. There may however be some powerful interests in favor of them.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by guyrj33

Remotely piloted vessels, aircraft and cars are something we as a society can chose to allow or disallow as we see fit.
We do not have to accept their existence as inevitable. There may however be some powerful interests in favor of them.

I have no doubt that there are powerful interests pushing this! Alas, I respectfully disagree about the inevitability of them. I am pretty sure that it will happen. The only question is how quickly it will happen. To me, it is similar to autonomous vehicles. They are already here to an extent and there is no stopping them. The discussion about whether we should or shouldn't almost always happens after the fact.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Clivevon

I guess in future ships will have a human pilot in & out of port & a machine doing the rest?

That's already how commercial ships operate in major commercial ports already. A local pilot takes the ship in and out of port and then hops off onto a pilot boat.

In open ocean, I can't see it as significantly different from current situation in terms of safety. In the long term, most offshore cruising boats will be expected to carry an AIS making collision largely a non issue (sure it could fail but that's a rare event).

The only issue would be in the event of breakdown, how often would the ships crew be able to repair it (question, not statement)? My guess is breakdowns that disable the ship are likely pretty rare on larger ships, so sending an emergency crew out on a chopper would be worth the hassle.

Obviously, it's a cost savings needing no or fewer crew and a potential safety benefit in that you can never have crew lost if they aren't on the ship to begin with.

There could be some design benefits in that you don't need a big bridge deck. It could be a small hardened compartment where the brains live and small cameras spread around. It could be one shore side captain managing multiple ships, only intervening if there are issues. This could open up more space to cargo or eliminate costs and complications that come with having crew spaces for 10-12 crew.

In pirate areas, with no crew, you just keep steaming ahead if attacked as you don't have to worry about crew being taken hostage. If they do get onboard, the ship brings them into the nearest friendly port where the local authorities can storm the ship and take the pirates into custody.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

That's already how commercial ships operate in major commercial ports already. A local pilot takes the ship in and out of port and then hops off onto a pilot boat.

In open ocean, I can't see it as significantly different from current situation in terms of safety. In the long term, most offshore cruising boats will be expected to carry an AIS making collision largely a non issue (sure it could fail but that's a rare event).

The only issue would be in the event of breakdown, how often would the ships crew be able to repair it (question, not statement)? My guess is breakdowns that disable the ship are likely pretty rare on larger ships, so sending an emergency crew out on a chopper would be worth the hassle.

Obviously, it's a cost savings needing no or fewer crew and a potential safety benefit in that you can never have crew lost if they aren't on the ship to begin with.

There could be some design benefits in that you don't need a big bridge deck. It could be a small hardened compartment where the brains live and small cameras spread around. It could be one shore side captain managing multiple ships, only intervening if there are issues. This could open up more space to cargo or eliminate costs and complications that come with having crew spaces for 10-12 crew.

In pirate areas, with no crew, you just keep steaming ahead if attacked as you don't have to worry about crew being taken hostage. If they do get onboard, the ship brings them into the nearest friendly port where the local authorities can storm the ship and take the pirates into custody.

These are some good comments and provide some good food for thought. The only item that I would modify is the comment about AIS. I agree that in an automated world, AIS would most often make collisions a very rare event, and that in a perfect world failures would be rare.

Where I would disagree to an extent is when geopolitics come into play. AIS relies, as of today, on satellite navigation. Alas, those signals are very weak and easily disrupted or worse, spoofed. Certainly some rare cosmic events will also disrupt these, although as you correctly point out, they are rare.

More likely is a man made disruption. This could be a governmental action (think asymmetrical warfare even in a cold war) but there are other possibilities. Pirates, rogue nations, criminals, terrorists, and just plain local hooligans are all likely to do something like this at some point.

Perhaps we need to go back to Loran?

[Dsanduril]

Having been involved in a few autonomous ship programs, one of the biggest legal challenges is actually ears. Autonomy does reasonably well as eyes, and can perform most COLREGs maneuvers as required.

Where it tends to fail is in maintaining the required radio watch on VHF. For all solutions I've seen to date a set of radios feeds into a satellite uplink that is monitored by humans at the other end. When the other vessel calls to confirm passing arrangements....

[flightlead404]

Originally Posted by Clivevon

I guess in future ships will have a human pilot in & out of port & a machine doing the rest?

You forgot the dog!

The human is there to feed the dog.

The dog is there to bite the human if he tries to touch the computer.

[clakiep]

I remember that some years ago there was a project to have a small automated trimaran sail unmanned nonstop around the world. Problem was no insurance company would accept the risk - what if it gets boarded and stolen ? Also Sweden has projects for unmanned feeder ships. Pretty crazy world. On one side this the woerries about unemployment, on the other side automatation frenzy for even potentially joyful activities.

[Jim Cate]

I wonder how long it will be before some clever crook gets into the nav system and redirects the ship into a place where cargo is stolen? Or drives a loaded tanker onto some shoal causing an environmental disaster?

The possibilities are endless, and there are plenty of very clever and also unscrupulous computer wonks already at work in the world.

Jim