Two autonomous electric barges that were built by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) for a Norwegian firm will begin their journey to Norway on board a yacht-transport carrier on Monday.

The 600-tonne electric barges named Maris and Teresa, each of which has a length of 67 metres, were placed on board the 210-metre-long mother vessel following an eight-hour effort on Sunday. The mother vessel owned by a Dutch firm was lowered 8.90 metres into the backwaters and its deck filled with water, following which tugs were used to pull the barges on board. This was followed by the raising of the mother vessel. The barges are expected to reach Norway in a month.

The electric barges were built for ASKO Maritime, the largest supermarket chain in Norway, which aims to achieve zero carbon emission in its logistics service by 2026.

After commissioning of the autonomous equipment and field trials in Norway, the vessels will operate as fully autonomous ferries that can transport 16 fully loaded trailers in one go.

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/autonomous-electric-barges-built-by-cochin-shipyard-to-begin-norway-trip/article65567408.ece

The newest pollution-collecting vessels in the fleet of Netherlands-based non-profit The Ocean Cleanup have begun undergoing a series of tests in Vietnam and Malaysia to allow their performance to be evaluated under operational conditions.

The tests on sisters Interceptor 003 and Interceptor 005 include an ongoing project where the vessels are being used to collect rubbish on the surfaces of rivers in the two countries. Interceptor 003 has been operating on Vietnam’s Can Tho River since December 2021 while Interceptor 005 has been deployed on the Klang River in Malaysia since earlier this month. The vessels have been placed in strategic locations in these rivers to make sure the main plastic flow is intercepted while still allowing other boats to pass.

Like their sister vessels, Interceptor 003 and Interceptor 005 are each fitted with a floating barrier that extends towards the front for funneling waste through the vessel’s mouth. River waste flowing with the current is guided by the barrier towards the opening of each vessel, eliminating the need for additional machinery to be used for actively removing waste from the surface of the water. All electronics on each vessel – including the conveyor belt, shuttle, lights, sensors, and data transmission – are solar-powered, thus further reducing reliance on carbon-emitting generators.

Thanks to the vessels’ catamaran design, the water flow path is optimised to pass through the system, carrying the plastic onto the conveyor belt. The conveyor continuously extracts the debris from the water and delivers the waste to a shuttle that automatically distributes the debris across six dumpsters. Using sensor data, the containers are filled equally until they reach their full total capacity of 50 cubic metres. The Ocean Cleanup claims that, under optimal operations, each vessel can extract up to 50,000 kilograms of plastic per day.

The vessels can work autonomously even for 24 hours straight until their onboard storage becomes full, though they can continue extracting debris even as their six 8.3-cubic-metre dumpsters are being emptied. When a vessel is almost full, it automatically sends a text message to the local operators to come and collect the waste. Operators then remove the vessel’s lower barge assembly, bring it to the side of the river, empty the dumpsters, send off the debris to local waste management facilities. The barge can be quickly and easily reinstalled in the vessel to resume regular rubbish collection operations afterwards.

The Ocean Cleanup said the newer vessels also feature key improvements over the older vessels in its fleet. These include: a conveyor belt being widened to 2.5 metres to allow for a less obstructive flow and better distribution to the dumpsters and a widened hull and dumpsters to make the transfer of rubbish from the conveyor to the dumpsters easier and more effective. The vessels’ monocrystalline solar cell panels and smart energy storage system are also smaller but just as efficient as those of their predecessors.

The catamaran design also helps facilitate containerisation and fast deployment thanks to its modular construction that allows for easy assembly and disassembly.

Interceptor 003 and Interceptor 005 were built by Finnish company Konecranes via its various local partners in Southeast Asia on behalf of The Ocean Cleanup.

SeaShuttle, the ambitious project to build two hydrogen-powered, remotely controlled and autonomous-ready containerships for delivery by 2025 has secured NOK150 million (€15M) in funding from Norwegian state enterprise ENOVA.

The bold scheme, led by multimodal transport and logistics group Samskip and marine robotics specialist Ocean Infinity, envisages two SeaShuttle ships operating emissions-free between Oslo Fjord and Rotterdam, with each powered by a 3.2MW hydrogen fuel cell.

ENOVA, which operates under Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment, promotes a shift towards more environmentally friendly energy consumption and production, as well as technologies based on sustainable energy.

Originally announced at Nor-Shipping 2022, Oslo, in April, the Samskip-Ocean Infinity partnership covers both the construction and operation of the ships, in a collaboration seeking to push forward towards zero-emission, efficient and safe, multimodal logistics.

“Samskip is very proud to take the lead role in pioneering the SeaShuttle initiative, as part of its ‘making green logistics easy’ strategy,” said Are Gråthen, CEO, Samskip Norway. “Securing this funding provides a platform to make emissions-free container shipping a reality. Together, Samskip and Ocean Infinity will also accelerate their plans to advance autonomous ship technologies, and remote operation of ships and cargo handling equipment. These ships are the first part of an exciting collaboration with Ocean Infinity.”

In line with commitments given at COP26 Clydebank Declaration, SeaShuttle would create what amounted to one of Europe’s first zero-emission ‘green corridors’, Gråthen added.

Christoffer Jorgenvag, CCO, Ocean Infinity, commented: “Ocean Infinity’s enabling technologies can facilitate green corridors but also the broader decarbonisation and transformation of maritime operations. The emphasis today is on the SeaShuttle vessels, which are just part of Ocean Infinity’s overall strategy of unlocking innovation to deliver truly sustainable maritime operations. We would like to thank Enova for their support for our vision which represents a firm endorsement of our ground-breaking approach and allows us to proceed at full speed in bringing this project to life.”

The funding means the partners can move forward to contract two new 500TEU ships installed with a main propulsion solution that can be adapted to run on hydrogen fuel. Diesel electric propulsion plant will be on board as back up, although Gråthen emphasized: “We have faith that green hydrogen will be affordable and available in Norway”.

Kari-Pekka Laaksonen, Group CEO, Samskip commented: “For Samskip, sustainability is one of the fundamentals of doing business. The SeaShuttle project is a substantial step in Samskip’s journey towards zero emission logistics. Its combination of fuel, technology and operational best practice is expected to make emissions-free shortsea shipping cost competitive with existing solutions.

As the maritime sector deals with digital transformation and decarbonization pressures, seafarers face increasingly complex and difficult industry challenges, and it appears collaborative working may be the only way to create one accurate, comprehensive data source.

Danelec works with over 10,000 vessels, and these vessels now have the opportunity to access the i4 Insight platform with no extra equipment costs.

Joel Meltzner, i4 Insight CEO explains; “Danelec are experts at accessing and collecting vessel data, they have equipment installed on thousands of vessels. Our new partnership now means that the Danelec data can be fed directly into our i4 fleet optimzation platform for AI analysis without any further equipment being installed. We can use this data to provide accurate and actionable insights for ship owners and charterers to improve vessel performance”

Casper Jensen, CEO Danelec, said; “Partnering with i4 allows us to offer our customers a quick and easy plug-and-play solution to utilise the navigational and engine room data collected onboard to improve vessel efficiency while reducing their carbon footprint to comply with upcoming emission reduction regulations”

We are extremely excited about the future of this new relationship and look forward to jointly supporting many more ship owners and charterers.

Autonomous systems company Sea Machines Robotics has unveiled its new AI-ris marine computer-vision navigation sensor, designed to improve safety and performance while vessels are underway by using artificial intelligence to track objects near the vessel.

AI-ris (Artificial Intelligence Recognition and Identification System) uses digital cameras and AI-processing to detect, track, classify and geolocate objects, vessel traffic and other potential obstacles to provide crews with enhanced situational awareness.

The system has been designed to mitigate against human fatigue, distraction and confusion in maritime operations, which can lead to incidents and accidents.

“AI-ris is always scanning for obstacles and can alert the operator of potentially dangerous situations. It also labels objects very small in size, like swimmers, kayakers or animals, to those very large, like another ship,” said CTO Trevor Vieweg, Sea Machines.

“With the ability to detect, classify and geolocate such targets via optical sensors, AI-ris augments and surpasses the capabilities of existing marine sensor technologies, like radar and automatic identification system (AIS), enabling greater performance and achieving the highest levels of safety. In the future, this technology may also help responders detect marine oil spills.”

AI-ris is available now and can be installed aboard existing vessels as well as newbuilds, the company says.