Uncrewed Surface Vessel Technological Diffusion Depends on Cross-Sectoral Investment in Open-Ocean Archetypes: A Systematic Review of USV Applications and Drivers

Accessing the world's oceans is essential for monitoring and sustainable management of the maritime domain. Difficulty in reaching remote locations has resulted in sparse coverage, undermining our capacity to deter illegal activities and gather data for physical and biological processes. Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs) have existed for over two decades and offer the potential to overcome difficulties associated with monitoring and surveillance in remote regions. However, they are not yet an integral component of maritime infrastructure. We analyse 15 years of non-autonomous and semi-autonomous USV-related literature to determine the factors limiting technological diffusion into everyday maritime operations. We systematically categorised over 1,000 USV-related publications to determine how government, academia and industry sectors use USVs and what drives their uptake. We found a striking overlap between these sectors for 11 applications and nine drivers. Low cost was a consistent and central driver for USV uptake across the three sectors. Product ‘compatibility' and lack of ‘complexity' appear to be major factors limiting USV technological diffusion amongst early adopters. We found that the majority (21 of 27) of commercially available USVs lacked the complexity required for multiple applications in beyond the horizon operations. We argue that the best value for money to advance USV uptake is for designs that offer cross-disciplinary applications and the ability to operate in an unsheltered open ocean without an escort or mothership. The benefits from this technological advancement can excel under existing collaborative governance frameworks and are most significant for remote and developing maritime nations.

SAFETY CRITICAL MARITIME INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS RESILIENCE: A CRITICAL REVIEW

Safety Critical Maritime Infrastructure (SCMI) systems are vulnerable to diverse risks in their challenging field of operations due to their interactions and interdependence. In addition, the multiplicity of stakeholders in these systems and the complex operational scenarios are often associated with a high level of uncertainty because they usually operate in a dynamic environment in which the boundaries of safety are pushed, leading to the disruption of operations. Therefore, the safety of these systems is very important to ensuring resilience of their operations. This research is focus on the background analysis of SCMI systems. This includes operational processes of SCMI systems, security threats and estimates of economic damage to the system, resilience engineering literature relevant to maritime operations; regulatory overview including risk governance of the systems, lessons learnt from major accidents and a concluding remark is drawn.

Outlining the Challenges of COVID-19 Pandemic on Africa’s Maritime Industry: the Case of Marine and Seafaring Professionals

Despite the ‘Key Worker’ status accorded seafarers in moments of demonstrable selflessness -ensuring, adequate supply of food, medicines, consumables like personal protective equipment (PPEs), and energy - there is a lack of genuine interest in their concerns, leading to various calls from major stakeholders such as the United Nations and International Maritime Organization. These calls associate- with various covid-19-related policies and regulations having a direct bearing on the ongoing crew change crises, maroon and overstay of contracts, poor mental health, rise in covid-19 infections and other unrelated illnesses among ship crew. Thus, to what extent are non-traditional seafaring nations of Africa being impacted? The study examines these concerns by identifying and investigating implemented covid-19 policies and regulations and their impact on maritime operations and crew ‘wellbeing;’ the contingency measures and innovations aiding mitigate responses with minimal challenges to seafarers and marine professionals. The case study approach focuses on West Africa’s maritime corridor, examining operations in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria and Angola to a host of varied ports and offshore installations operations. Direct field observations, as well as questionnaires and interviews of expert or ‘eye witness’ account, deployed via phone calls, online social media and emails are carried out. The study finds MLC 2006 was not been complied with. Embarkation quarantine measures and testing implemented for offshore Ghana and Angola could not prevent the outbreak of cases onboard FPSO units respectively, though the process identified positive cases during quarantine. The stigma associated with positive cases amongst the crew were prevalent in the first six months of pandemic declaration. Of the survey conducted amongst 71 vessel crew, 32.14% were certain of having recorded Covid-19 positive cases on their various Jobsites, 91.06% showed support for IMO-led interventions against covid-19, 30% complained of uncertainty spared by rumours as fueling poor mental health. However, only 19% willingly addressed issues of their proximity to covid-19. Vaccine inoculations upon commencing March 2021 remained low in the region amongst marine professionals. Mitigating measures implemented include increased internet and call access, and extensive boarding protocols. In conclusion, lessons learnt within these periods of history going forward should inform the need for a comprehensively developed global emergency response contingency regulatory plan that identifies various potential threats, establishes adequate measures and make adjustment for review and amendments –to be instated only in times of global emergencies.

Estimating human error probability in transporting steel cargo with bulk carriers using a hybrid approach

Maritime operations include potential human-made hazards. For this reason, evaluating human-made hazards for cost-effective ship management is of vital importance in the maritime industry. From past to present, researchers have attempted to offer preventive approaches to minimise human-made hazards. In this context, the present article proposes a hybrid approach through the integration of the Delphi, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique (HEART) methods. With this approach, human-made claims occurring during the handling and transport of steel cargo in bulk carriers were analysed. The outputs of the present article contribute to the improvement of overall safety levels of steel cargo and bulk carriers by considering the potential hazards in risk management.

Maritime navigational assistance by visual augmentation

Several types of equipment have been developed over the years to assist ship operators with their tasks. Nowadays, navigational equipment typically provides an enormous volume of information. Thus, there is a corresponding need for efficiency in how such information is presented to ship operators. Augmented reality (AR) systems are being investigated for such efficient presentation of typical navigational information. The present work is particularly interested in an AR architecture commonly referred as monitor augmented reality (MAR). In this context, the development of MAR systems is briefly summarised. The projection of three-dimensional elements into a camera scene is presented. Potential visual assets are proposed and exemplified with videos from a ship manoeuvring simulator and a real experiment. Enhanced scenes combining pertinent virtual elements are shown exemplifying potential assistance applications. The authors mean to contribute to the popularisation of MAR systems in maritime environments. Further research is suggested to define optimal combinations of visual elements for alternative maritime navigation scenarios. Note that there are still many challenges for the deployment of MAR tools in typical maritime operations.

Development of an Augmented Reality Concept for Icebreaker Assistance and Convoy Operations

A vessel convoy is a complex and high-risk operation completed during icebreaking operations in the Arctic. Icebreaker navigators need to continuously communicate with their crew while monitoring information such as speed, heading, and distance between vessels in the convoy. This paper presents an augmented reality user interface concept, which aims to support navigators by improving oversight and safety during convoy operations. The concept demonstrates how augmented reality can help to realize a situated user interface that adapts to user’s physical and operational contexts. The concept was developed through a human-centered design process and tested through a virtual reality simulator in a usability study involving seven mariners. The results suggest that augmented reality has the potential to improve the safety of convoy operations by integrating distributed information with heads-up access to operation-critical information. However, the user interface concept is still novel, and further work is needed to develop the concept and safely integrate augmented reality into maritime operations.

Tracking changes in the area, thickness, and volume of the Thwaites tabular iceberg “B30” using satellite altimetry and imagery

Icebergs account for half of all ice loss from Antarctica and, once released, present a hazard to maritime operations. Their melting leads to a redistribution of cold fresh water around the Southern Ocean which, in turn, influences water circulation, promotes sea ice formation, and fosters primary production. In this study, we combine CryoSat-2 satellite altimetry with MODIS and Sentinel-1 satellite imagery and meteorological data to track changes in the area, freeboard, thickness, and volume of the B30 tabular iceberg between 2012 and 2018. We track the iceberg elevation when it was attached to Thwaites Glacier and on a further 106 occasions after it calved using Level 1b CryoSat data, which ensures that measurements recorded in different acquisition modes and within different geographical zones are consistently processed. From these data, we map the iceberg's freeboard and estimate its thickness taking snowfall and changes in snow and ice density into account. We compute changes in freeboard and thickness relative to the initial average for each overpass and compare these to estimates from precisely located tracks using the satellite imagery. This comparison shows good agreement (correlation coefficient 0.87) and suggests that colocation reduces the freeboard uncertainty by 1.6 m. We also demonstrate that the snow layer has a significant impact on iceberg thickness change. Changes in the iceberg area are measured by tracing its perimeter, and we show that alternative estimates based on arc lengths recorded in satellite altimetry profiles and on measurements of the semi-major and semi-minor axes also capture the trend, though with a 48 % overestimate and a 15 % underestimate, respectively. Since it calved, the area of B30 has decreased from 1500±60 to 426±27 km2, its mean freeboard has fallen from 49.0±4.6 to 38.8±2.2 m, and its mean thickness has reduced from 315±36 to 198±14 m. The combined loss amounts to an 80 %±16 % reduction in volume, two thirds (69 %±14 %) of which is due to fragmentation and the remainder (31 %±11 %) of which is due to basal melting.

NSOF AND ROTARY-WING PLATFORMS – INTEGRATED OR JOINT?

There is today a burgeoning discussion about how Romanian Naval Special Operations Forces (RNSOF) is supported in maritime operations by the conventional means of the Romanian Navy rotary-wing platforms. As part of this approach, we set out to analyze the regulatory framework for ensuring the support of naval aviation in the execution of NSOF missions. Thus, we will study the evolution of the cooperation of the ROU Navy Helicopter Group and NSOF from the perspective of regulations on cooperation, training, common standard operating procedures, references on standardization and safety in the execution of training and missions in the maritime environment. This research addresses an aspect of special operations that has yet to be explained adequately. To achieve this goal, we will describe how these operations are conducted in NATO countries, which have integrated maritime aviation in support of naval forces for special operations in the maritime environment. According to the specified causes to achieve our objectives, we will search for solutions to compensate or reduce the gap between necessity and reality. Through comparative analysis and documentation on the strategies used by foreign military forces, with similar roles and missions, we will provide solutions that will cover an area that can vary from adapting procedures to establishing the need to develop certain regulations. Our study is addressed to persons involved or interested in the military field and special naval operations and aims to highlight the importance of developing the NSOF capacity to cooperate with integrated maritime aviation and adjusted to the requirements of the execution of special maritime operations. Taking these recommendations into account will increase the effectiveness of NSOF maritime operations with the support of rotary-wing platforms while ensuring the transition to a robust/ real joint NSOF capability in response to existing threats in the Black Sea.