NYK conducts world’s first maritime test of autonomous ships

NYK, a Japanese shipping company, conducted the first test of an autonomous ship in the world. The activity was carried out according to the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) preliminary guidelines for autonomous ships.

The ship, called the Iris Leader, with a gross tonnage of 70,826 tons, made its way from Xinsha, China to Nagoya Port, Japan from September 14 to 17, and then from Nagoya Port to Yokohama Port, also in Japan, from September 19 to 20.

The Sherpa System for Real (SSR) navigation system was used for this, which calculates the best maritime route based on the verified environmental conditions.

In a statement, NYK reported that during the test the performance of the SSR under actual sea conditions was monitored by collecting information on environmental conditions around the ship from existing navigation devices, collision risk calculation, determination of automatic route selection, and optimum safe and economical speeds.

According to the company, the autonomy test was conducted in accordance with IMO’s provisional guidelines for this type of operation, called Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship (MASS).

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