Situation Awareness in Remote Control Centres for Unmanned Ships

The feasibility of unmanned, autonomous merchant vessels is investigated by the EU project MUNIN (Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks). The ships will be manned during passage to and from port and unmanned during ocean-passage. When unmanned, the ships will be controlled by an automatic system informed by onboard sensors allowing the ship to make standard collision avoidance manoeuvres according to international regulation. The ship will be continuously monitored by a remote shore centre able to take remote control should the automatic systems falter. For the humans in the shore control centre the usual problems of automations remains as well as a pronounced problem of keeping up adequate situation awareness through remote sensing.