Manually controlled by humans
Sleeping sailors are abruptly woken in their cabins where ice-cold seawater starts to pour in and electric wires and other cables stick out everywhere. Luckily, everyone is evacuated, no lives are lost, and only seven people on board are injured. The tanker has only received a few scratches, and an environmental disaster has been avoided.
The morning news that day played the audio log from the incident. How was it possible not to spot a 250-meter-long tanker on a collision course?
There are many complex reasons why the accident occurred, but would the same have happened if Helge Ingstad had been equipped with higher levels of autonomy and artificial intelligence (AI)?
Opinions vary.
Photo credit: Royal Norwegian Navy
AI can reduce possible accidents Ingrid Bouwer Utne is professor of Marine Safety and Risk at NTNU’s Department of Marine Technology. She conducts research on the development of safer and more intelligent autonomous systems – for shipping, underwater robotics and flying drones. Utne’s research is organized under the Fjord Laboratory section of the Norwegian Ocean Technology Centre.
Utne believes that more AI in the maritime sector could have contributed to a better understanding of the maritime accident, both on the bridge of Helge Ingstad and at the Fedje Vessel Traffic Service Centre, which monitors and regulates vessel traffic in the area.
“Neither the outgoing nor the incoming officer of the watch on board Helge Ingstad understood that TS Sola was a tanker. And the operator at Fedje forgot to plot the course of Helge Ingstad when the ship arrived at what is called the precautionary area,” says Utne.
She thinks that these are examples of where better decision support could have reduced the likelihood of these kinds of misunderstandings and oversights, even if AI and autonomous systems alone are not adequate risk mitigation measures.
Utne is a former operations officer on frigates in the Royal Norwegian Navy. She has been a member of a committee working on an Official Norwegian Report (NOU) looking into cruise traffic in Norwegian
122 | ISSUE 109 | SEP 2024 | THE REPORT
waters after Viking Sky almost ran aground during a storm in Hustadvika in 2019 with almost 1400 people on board. In two of the research projects she has worked on in recent years, the aim is to incorporate risk understanding into the ‘thinking’ of autonomous systems.
AI must be able to reason more like human beings The research conducted in the ORCAS project is about further developing autonomous ships. Kongsberg Maritime and Det Norske Veritas (DNV) are partners in this project. In the UNLOCK project, autonomy research is focused on flying drones and underwater robots.
Among other things, the aim is to get drones and robots to carry out inspections in hard-to-reach areas, such as in closed tanks and under sheets of ice.
“The projects are about connecting the way robots sense risk with control so that risk assessment becomes a more integrated part of the decision-making process for robots,” explains Utne.
With more autonomous systems operating independently of a human operator, good risk assessments must be made.
“If robots are to be made more intelligent, it is natural to think that they need to be able to reason more like human beings. They must be able to assess risk.”
“A lot of good research takes place at the intersection of different disciplines, and it requires creative and open-minded people,” says Utne.
Just prior to the Helge Ingstad accident, the sailors on board the frigate were undergoing optical navigation training.
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