
Rolls-Royce's Vision of Shore-based Control Centers for Unmanned Cargo Ships - protomyth
https://gcaptain.com/rolls-royce-reveals-details-on-shore-based-control-rooms-for-operation-of-unmanned-cargo-ships/
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jessaustin
It's hard for me to believe that the crew is the high-cost component in
oceanic shipping. From what I've seen they're mostly from the Philippines and
similar low-wage nations. Besides, getting rid of them isn't just a question
of steering and throttling. Most of the crew is engaged in maintenance for
most of the journey. Are the nerds on the holodeck somehow managing that as
well?

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manicdee
How much maintenance is required at sea due to attempts at stretching out
maintenance normally performed in dock?

If you can remove the crew cost, does that free up enough capital to perform
regular maintenance of various elements to reduce failures at sea?

You are then left with losses due to structural damage at sea, which then
disappears in the accounting books as self-insurable. If a ship takes a few
extra days to get to destination because it was sailing around storms, there
is no incremental cost beyond fuel (and if using wind/solar, the fuel cost
disappears too).

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jessaustin
I have to read that in my internal naive MBA's voice. After enough
"optimization", one is left picking up pennies in front of the steamroller.
Many things can go wrong at sea. Many of those things will send one's ship and
all cargo aboard to the depths. Insurers will not embrace the technology TFA
describes.

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showerst
Is it cheaper to have an emergency maintenance team on call 24/7 in a few key
locations and just fly them out when there's an issue, or do the events tend
to happen too fast to save the ships from a few hours away?

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jessaustin
Some shipping routes pass through some fairly remote stretches of ocean. While
it's true that few issues would require instant attention, just getting
attention within twelve hours might be difficult. And now a widely-dispersed
fleet of large seagoing helicopters and their support infrastructure is a link
in the chain. Here I thought ship maintenance was a challenge! Perhaps the
biggest problem is that when maintenance is _really_ a priority, severe storms
are likely to be involved. Flying into those in order to land personnel and
equipment on a troubled ship in order to perform maintenance should not be a
regular event in oceanic shipping.

This sort of innovation might catch on for less remote routes first, however.

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jallmann
Gah, a gCaptain article! There goes my evening...

Seriously, gCaptain is probably my favorite i-know-nothing-and-this-is-awesome
industry blog. Would be fascinating to know more about (and perhaps work on!)
the state of the art in maritime technology.

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acdanger
Agreed! Anyone aware of any other similar blogs focused on otherwise
mysterious industries?

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showerst
I find [http://russianforces.org/](http://russianforces.org/) fascinating --
the author is an expert on russian nuclear weapons, and writes about the
development of new missiles and subs.

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ykl
On a total aside, I wonder what VFX house they got to do this, because it all
looks great. Usually these random corporate concept videos all look really
cheesy.

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starmilk
How would they enforce security? Remember that pirates exist, would the
savings on human captains be enough that they could sail around dangerous
areas?

I know this is a planned concept, but surely security is a major concern. Can
anyone with further shipping industry knowledge chime in?

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mbreese
I had the same thought. But maybe, it's less of a concern with an automated
ship.

 _If_ the steering and engine rooms are sufficiently hardened, that is. It's
one thing for someone to get onboard, but it's an entirely different thing to
stop the boat. Without humans onboard, who will stop it? And, without a crew,
there aren't any hostages. If you're remotely controlling the boat, you could
just keep going and bring the pirates with you to the nearest maritime/port
authority (Coast Guard, etc...). There is still a risk to the cargo, but how
are pirates going to unload a container ship that is still moving in the ocean
with an uncooperative captain controlling it remotely?

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verroq
They can just damage the ship. It would be also ridiculous to think that there
won't be an onboard manual override for controls.

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mbreese
I'm not saying that they couldn't. I expect that they would. But, for large
container ships, isn't the bigger concern hostages? No crew = no hostages.

I mean, pirates aren't going to be able to dock a large container ship at any
random port. And even if there is a manual override, why wouldn't it require a
key of some kind?

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the threat model changes when you
don't have a crew on board that you can threaten. Some parts of piracy
(access) may be easier, but others more difficult.

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an4rchy
This is an awesome concept video.

Autonomous sailing, which sounds like a natural next step after self-
driving,autopilot etc would be easier, but probably more points of failure and
less chance of repair.

I definitely don't know the complexities of shipping vessel
navigation/maintenance but it seems like a somewhat quick way to try this out
could be try this with motors/sensors and have repair crews ready in ports (on
standby) and just airlift them to ship, in case of failure.

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adaline
This reminds me of the "Da Vinci" virus form Hackers movie, which threatens to
capsize an oil tanker fleet. Who would have thought that movie was so
visionary!

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verroq
Hackers will now be able to remotely hijack ships to Somalia.

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zappo2938
Through FBI back doors.

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smoyer
Does anyone else think the "captain's chair" looks like it came out of a Star
Trek movie?

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jkldotio
It also reminds me of the chairs in Beer's Project Cybersyn.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn)

