The Finnish Geospatial Research Institute has announced that together with Aalto University they will team up with Fleetrange and the Tallink Group as part of a research project carried out under a program of and funded by the European Space Agency (ESA). The goal is to develop techniques for autonomous navigation for ships with focus on safety, using a combination of different sensors, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

According to a prepared statement, the technology will combine data from visual images, environmental sound recordings, radar and lidar ranging, satellite navigation, and vessel transponders. These sensors will be installed on Tallink’s Megastar ferry and the data processing will be performed using innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning software.

“A single sensor is never sufficient for providing complete safety-critical information to the crew. They always refer to multiple devices providing overlapping information so that defects in any one device can be easily identified and excluded. An autonomous navigation system should work on a similar principle,” commented. Sarang Thombre, research manager at Geospatial.

The goal is to automatically identify and recognize objects, such as navigation aids and other vessels and boats around the ship and provide improved situational awareness information through sensor fusion.

“When such information is combined with established vessel navigation rules and regulations, it can potentially enable the vessel to navigate with minimal human guidance even in dense traffic conditions of the Baltic Sea,” added Thombre.

“The choice of Megastar as a test vessel was an easy decision. Tallink is the front-runner in innovative new solutions and the Megastar is the most advanced and environmentally friendly ferry in this area. The traffic area between Tallinn and Helsinki is also highly dense with both commercial vessels and leisure boats and provides an excellent testing ground for the new techniques we aim to study,” added Captain Henrik Ramm-Schmidt, CEO and founder of Fleetrange.

The objective of the ESA-funded research project is to improve European know-how in the field of autonomous transports and to study how European space-based positioning and navigation infrastructure, such as Galileo and EGNOS, can contribute to enhancing scientific innovation and consequently business opportunities in this field.