Navigating Towards Autonomy: Trust in Maritime Safety Assurance Grows
The latest report from the Centre for Assuring Autonomy (CfAA) has found increased confidence in the safety assurance of autonomous processes across the maritime industry.
A survey from the CfAA’s recent maritime workshop has revealed a significant shift from a where most attendees felt ‘not at all confident’ to ‘somewhat confident’ in the development of safety assurance for autonomous systems. However, in only six months, levels of confidence have moved to the other end of the spectrum with most attendees feeling ‘confident’ or ‘very confident’.
Workshop attendees included senior leaders from across the maritime industry such as class societies, ports, shipbuilders and equipment suppliers, regulators, pilots, insurers, lighthouse services, and consultants. During the workshop, which looked at key issues including minimal assurance processes, human factors, and safety, security and resilience, considerable common ground emerged around the perceived challenges of implementing maritime autonomy.
The CfAA found that:
- The biggest barriers to deploying autonomy are safety assurance, regulation, human factors and the business case.
- There is growing confidence in the development of safety assurance approaches in the maritime sector, although few are very confident.
- There is a strong emphasis on the need for government intervention and regulatory development to enable the sector to make rapid progress.
Whilst some challenges remain the same - particularly around the need for regulation - progress in the industry’s confidence around autonomous systems is encouraging. This may be in part to the growing development of safety and assurance cases, a factor noted in a survey question around governance. Another major outcome of the maritime workshop was the pressing need for a demonstrator focused on maritime safety assurance.
CfAA Director, Professor John McDermid OBE, said: “We have seen consistent and continuing engagement with a wide range of maritime stakeholders through this event which has led to growing calls for a “demonstrator” of autonomy assurance. Through our work with several national maritime authorities and maritime industry organisations we are spearheading the drive to define and gain support for such a suitable project.”
Download the report below to learn how the CfAA is supporting the transition to maritime autonomy.
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