Finferries, Rolls-Royce to Advance Autonomous Navigation

Finnish shipowner Finferries has partnered with Rolls-Royce in an effort to advance technologies for remote and autonomous ferry operations.

The companies signed a collaboration agreement Thursday to jointly develop strategies and solutions to optimize the safety and efficiency of marine operations through developing the technology for decision supporting systems and to demonstrate remote and autonomous ferry operations.

As part of the collaboration, a new research project called SVAN (Safer Vessel with Autonomous Navigation) will be considered as the firms look to build off of the findings from the Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications (AAWA) research project, which formally ended in late 2017.

Funded by Business Finland, AAWA brought together a number of stakeholders from a myriad of shipping industry sectors to research the commercial and technical viability of a next generation of advanced ship solutions. Both Rolls-Royce and Finferries were involved in the project.

Karno Tenovuo, Senior Vice President, Rolls-Royce Ship Intelligence, said, “We are extremely pleased that that the collaboration we had with Finferries in the AAWA project is to continue. This new collaboration agreement could take safer, cleaner shipping to the next level. Rolls-Royce will develop solutions to enhance the safety and efficiency of marine operations in the ferry sector, which will be demonstrated in the test platform provided by Finferries.”

Mats Rosin, Finferries’ CEO, added, “We are excited to further deepen our collaboration with Rolls-Royce. Finferries wants to actively take part in ventures where cutting-edge technology is utilized to increase the safety in maritime operations. We believe this cooperation will benefit both our customers and the environment as the focus is on increasing reliability of marine traffic.”