Maritime Autonomy: The Reality
While merriam-webster.com is succinct in its definition of ‘autonomous’, ask 10 people in the maritime sector what ‘autonomous’ vessel means to them and the responses vary widely. Achieving autonomous, unmanned operations is not high, today, on the agenda of many (if any) shipowners. What does command their attention? Building ships that are increasingly ‘smart,’ with integrated, connected systems that take on additional decision-making processes while helping to reduce crew size (and cost)…
Industry 4.0 on the High Seas
Werner von Siemens’ mission to lay 50,000 nautical miles of transatlantic cables might not have been destined to fail – but at least one business rival tried to make sure that it would. It wasn’t enough to merely execute a risky project that had never been done before. The crew aboard the Faraday, the ship that Siemens and his brothers commissioned, also had to move faster than saboteurs who planted false reports in the press and even broke cables. And it was in this pressure…
Ship Owners to Get Complete “LNG Solution”
Alliance between Siemens Drilling and Marine, Dresser-Rand—A Siemens Business, and Lloyd’s Register provides end-to-end solution to guarantee availability of LNG as marine propulsion fuel. A "best of industry" team plans to to make LNG widely available to ship owners seeking to use natural gas as a propulsion fuel, meeting tough Sulfur (SOx) and Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emission-reduction requirements – whether regionally or globally. By providing an end-to-end solution encompassing the entire supply chain from natural gas procurement to liquefaction and delivery of LNG to new-building or retrofitting, the collaboration will remove obstacles that can hold back wide-spread adoption of natural gas as the marine fuel of choice.
RV Sikuliaq: Modern Electric Propulsion & Power Management
While ships have used electricity to help power vessels for a long time, new and sophisticated diesel-electric technologies are making serious gains in efficiency, noise and environmental impact, and is becoming the propulsion system of choice for some high profile names. A recent case is the diesel-electric powered, RV Sikuliaq (pronounced “see-koo-lee-auk,” an Inupiaq term meaning “young sea ice.”), a vessel embarking on a lifetime of studies in the polar sea region, including examining the effects of climate change and increased human presence in the Arctic.
Siemens Wins Order for Two Marine PSVs
Siemens Industr awarded a multimillion dollar contract by LEEVAC Shipyards, LLC to equip two newly constructed Aries Marine Corporation marine platform supply vessels (PSV) with its unique diesel electric propulsion solution at Leevac’s facilities in Jennings, La. “The demands placed on the onboard systems and technologies of today’s PSVs are high as these vessels are specialized and tailored based upon particular machine layouts, power requirements, automation processes, climatic conditions and more,” says David Grucza, marine business manager, Siemens Industry, Inc. The two 270 ft PSVs will be outfitted with Siemens Blue multi-drive, low-voltage system.
