Human-centred maritime autonomy - An ethnography of the future (original) (raw)

On the road to Autonomous Maritime Transport: A conceptual framework to meet training needs for future ship operations

Human Factors in Transportation

Accelerating towards an autonomous future, the maritime transport industry is going through a phase of rapid digitalization and automation. Novel technologies and complex tools, that substitute human functions, are increasingly introduced on board modern ships. However, experiences from other industries show that introducing complex technologies in the workplace without due consideration of the human factors can often lead to disastrous consequences. Traditionally, seafarers developed their competencies through authentic participation in shipboard activities, under the guidance of experienced seniors. However, with digitalization, various tasks are getting internalized, leaving no clues about the inner workings to an onlooker, and this in turn, is adversely affecting their learning opportunities. Studies also show that in a technology-rich workplace, the limited number of human operators overseeing multiple, complex tasks, can cause job intensification, operator’s cognitive overload...

Moving Control from Ship to Shore: Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Autonomous Shipping

Advances in Information and Communication. FICC 2022. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, 2022

This paper discusses the ongoing process of digitalization and automation in society referred to as the fourth industrial evolution. The ongoing technological transformation of industries have led to a decentralization of control, and as a result, fragmentation of work when tasks are distributed among several human and artificial actors in diverse locales and organizations. The aim is to use an "industry of the future", in this case autonomous shipping, as an illustrative case to explore the ways cooperation changes when work is distributed between humans in a network of control rooms and autonomous vehicles. Taking the departure in an ongoing project of autonomous shipping in Norway as well as in classical CSCW studies on centers of coordination, we discuss how the decentralization of control rooms transforms the social and material conditions for cooperation, but also challenges for establishing cooperation between humans and autonomous vehicles. As a result, we propose that control room of the future will share characteristics with control rooms of the past, i.e., taking the form of hybrid spaces where both traditional practices and high-end technologies are at work. Although it is difficult to pinpoint how the relationship between human operators and autonomous vessels will manifest itself in future work practices, we find it likely to assume that the interaction with automation will give rise to novel forms of articulation work where new standards and norms of accountability and trust are negotiated and reproduced. Future studies need to analyse, in interactional detail, the ways in which humans interact with artificial agency to co-construct an understanding of the evolving situation.

Automated Functions: Their Potential for Impact Upon Maritime Sociotechnical Systems

2020

The shipping industry is evolving towards an unknown and unpredictable future. There is speculation that in the next two decades the maritime industry will witness changes far exceeding those experienced over the past 100 years. The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), big data, automation and their impacts upon fully autonomous ships have the potential to transform the maritime industry. While change is inevitable in the maritime domain, automated solutions do not guarantee navigational safety, efficiency or improved seaway traffic management. Such dramatic change also calls for a more systematic approach to designing, evaluating and adopting new solutions into a system. Although intended to support operator decision-making needs and reduce operator workload, the outcomes might create unforeseen changes throughout other aspects of the maritime sociotechnical system. In the maritime industry, the human is seldom put first in technology design which paradoxically introd...

Command of Vessels in the Era of Digitalization

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2019

Recent discussions on digitalization, and autonomous ships provide a disruptive picture of how the maritime industry may be transformed in this process. The magnitude of this digitalization trend is very different from the one of implementing e-Navigation initiated by the International Maritime Organi- zation (IMO) in 2006 to harmonize, integrate, exchange, present and analyze marine information on board and ashore by electronic means. A rapid speed of digitalization of ship operation is causing controversy. For example, the mar- itime industry has not yet come to a consensus about agreed definitions of “autonomous ship”, “unmanned ship” and a “remote-controlled vessel”. Some pioneering industry developers, invest in the digitalization of ship operation to make the maritime transport more reliable, safe and efficient. Whilst such technological developments promise safe and efficient business models to a greater extent, it has not been much discussed how people on board will be affected by digitalization with a particular attention to the notion of leader- ship. Command of vessels has been traditionally considered as a human domain. The ways in which leadership is displayed on board and how each task is dedicated to the members of a shipboard organization will be radically different in the era of digitalization. Based on the qualitative data obtained from semi- structured interviews, group interviews and participant observation with mar- itime experts in Norway, the paper discusses the impact of digitalization on organized work in ship operation, implications of digitalization for leadership, and leadership required in the era of digitalization. It concludes that human- automation coordination as well as human-human coordination are the key to support the future operation of ships.