From SCDigest's On-Target e-Magazine
- Feb. 26, 2014 -
Global Supply Chain News: Will We Soon See Drone Cargo and Container Ships?
Rolls Royce, Euro Group Working on the Idea; Will the ROI be There?
SCDigest Editorial Staff
Amazon.com is piloting drone aircraft for package deliveries. A number of firms, especially in Europe, are working hard on the concept of driverless trucks.
So it shouldn't really be any surprise that work is now also being on unmanned cargo and container ships as well.
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There are already doubts and resistance to the drone ship concept. Some, for example, believe the ROI from such an effort just isn't there.
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News came out this week that Rolls Royce has been working on such a concept since late 2013. The research work is being performed under a project it calls Blue Ocean, and it has already created virtual-reality prototype at its research center in Alesund, Norway, that simulates 360-degree views from a vessel's bridge.
Rolls Royce's efforts are connecting to something called the Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks (MUNIN). The program is co-funded by the European Commissions and aims to develop and verify a concept for an autonomous ship, which is defined as a vessel primarily guided by automated on-board decision systems but controlled by a remote operator in a shore side control station.
MUNIN is a consortium of eight partners that have the relevant scientific and industrial background. The group is studying the operational, technical and legal aspects in connection with the vision of an autonomous ship.
Its web site says that "Solutions for an autonomous bridge, an autonomous engine room, a shore side operation center and the communication architecture linking vessel and a shore operator will be developed and verified" as a result of the program.
It hopes to develop a prototype ship that can be sailed by the end of 2015.
Of course, reducing operating costs is one big driver of the research. Ship crews can cost more than $3000 per day, and represent some 45% of total variable operating costs, industry experts say. Drone ships would dramatically reduce those labor costs.
Rolls Royce says that in addition to the labor savings, drone ships would be safer and more environmentally friendly.
Company drawings for the new ships show vessels loaded with containers from front to back, without the need for a "bridge" structure where the crew normally lives. Eliminating the bridge and all the other systems that support the crew (electrical systems, air conditioning, water and sewage, etc.) leaves more room for cargo or containers. Rolls Royce estimates that the ships would be 5% lighter before loading cargo and would use 12-15% less fuel.
Bloomberg notes the company's Oskar Levander, vice president of innovation in marine engineering and technology, believes the unmanned ships might be deployed in regions such as the Baltic Sea within a decade, but that regulatory hurdles combined with industry and union pushback relative to safety and other issues will slow global adoption.
(Global Supply Chain Article Continued Below)
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