Back in 2017, Professor Mogens Blanke and a team from DTU met with FORCE Technology and the Danish Maritime Authority. They wanted to explore what autonomous technology can do for shipping. Now some five years later, there is consequently a driverless harbour sailing around the port in Aalborg.
"We asked ourselves: what can a computer understand just as well as a human being? What can't computers do? And what can they do better than humans?" says DTU's Professor Mogens Blanke.
These questions, asked at the meeting, marked the beginning of a research collaboration known as ShippingLab, which brought together a range of educational institutions, including DTU, the maritime industry and other organizations in their pursuit to develop autonomous technology for use in Danish shipping.
Autonomous technology is the technology that, for instance, makes it possible to run the Copenhagen Metro on a driverless basis. Instead of a train driver driving the train, each metro service is run by a computer from a control room where one person is tasked with keeping an eye on several trains at once.
Technologically we have come so far that it has become possible, slowly but surely, to envisage something similar on selected Danish ferry routes. Ergo, driverless but not uncrewed ships-your ticket will still be checked, but the ship will be sailed from a control room on dry land that is capable of handling several different routes at once.
The harbour bus in Aalborg has been named GreenHopper, and it is Denmark's first autonomous harbour bus prototype. Once it is given permission to perform autonomous sailings in Denmark, it will be sail between the Utzon Center on the Aalborg side of the Limfjord and Stigsborg Brygge on the Nørresundby side. The crossing takes 5-7 minutes, and the harbour bus can carry up to 24 passengers, as well as bicycles and prams.
DTU has developed the technology behind GreenHopper's autonomous control system, and it must be said that waving goodbye to the captain is not an altogether straightforward task. In order to pass other ships and avoid collisions, the control system on board the harbour bus requires inputs from cameras, monitoring systems and a swathe of sensors. All these inputs are handled by AI algorithms.
In short, an algorithm is a step-by-step process of calculations performed by a computer based on a wide variety of data inputs. An AI algorithm programs the computer to calculate or interpret data by itself, which enables it to operate independently based on data inputs and pre-defined rules.
It is therefore the AI algorithms in GreenHopper's control system that make it possible for the harbour bus to sail safely across the Limfjord without a flesh and blood captain at the helm. However, for the sake of safety there will always be a person who can intervene and bring the harbour bus to a halt should it be necessary. This can be done from a control point on board the harbour bus or via an onshore monitoring system.
