Maritime AI Innovation Lab
Running
The Maritime AI Innovation Lab provides a unique and modular development environment for the entire maritime industry and aims to improve designs and operations of future ships.
MOTIVATION
The challenges to design and operate ships are increasing. Emission free ships and operations require more complex propulsion, power and energy systems. The fast growing offshore sustainable energy requires complex installation and maintenance operations at sea. People need to be better supported both during vessel design and on board. Through the application of AI we can make many systems smarter and better support design and operation alike.APPROACH
The Maritime AI InnovationLab seeks to improve both design as well as operation of future ships and will involve onboard crew in developing new working procedures and onboard support tools to make more effective use of scarce personnel. With this, operational gains can be achieved through more efficient fuel consumption, timely maintenance, safe and predictable operations, extension of service life and support for design. By integrating domain knowledge and data driven technologies in short cyclic innovation tracks, our InnovationLab provides a unique and modular development environment for the entire industry. This broad approach includes a combination of physical modeling, measurements on scale models, simulators or in operation, (self-learning) control technology, (un)supervised learning and reinforcement learning. Participating companies and knowledge institutions will create the foundation on which future maritime developments will be built.Contact
Tobias van Dijk
senior project manager
In the Maritime AI Innovation Lab, we will work with information obtained from simulations, scale tests, simulators and in-service measurement to develop AI driven solutions for the industry.
IMPACT
Through investment in this InnovationLab the participating SMEs aim to achieve an improvement of their services. The InnovationLab will also provide more fundamental technological building blocks. With these components, the maritime industry will become more accessible to AI developers and can also benefit from future developments. AI-technologies can be easily integrated with maritime design or operational practices. In this way, there is a lasting impact on the entire sector.
SHORT-CYCLE INNOVATION TRACKS
The innovation tracks will deliver solutions to specific use cases, but also provide essential technology building blocks. These components can serve a wide variety of applications and in return the innovation tracks provide further development or validation. Subsequent innovation tracks can build on validated components, improve their applicability, and advance the application themes of clean shipping, safe operation and sustainable use of the seas.The first two innovation tracks will address improved safety and workability for support of offshore wind farms and emission assessment under influence of wave loads and fouling (hull surface deposits). The first track will result in tooling that will help to predict workability based on expected weather conditions. By modelling the risk of sea sickness for crews on transport vessels, better maintenance procedures for offshore wind farms can be organized, both by planning of maintenance interventions as well as by supporting these vessels during transit and in operation. In the second track, the degradation of fuel efficiency under influence of weather conditions and fouling is modelled. This will provide basic tooling that can help in optimization of hull maintenance. In a future track, this can also support the development of routing algorithms. A number of possible future innovation tracks result in solutions for subsea inspection, control of subsea systems and wind propulsion systems, optimization of designs and autonomous sailing.
TRACK PROPOSALS
Any (Dutch) company can form a track consortium and apply with a development plan. The Innovation counsel of NML determines which tracks get awarded.Both contributions to technical developments of components and contributions to the application themes are considered important criteria when awarding innovation track.
