Fujitsu’s AI Tech Predicts Vessel Collision Risks on Sea Routes
Fujitsu Limited has developed a highly accurate AI technology to predict vessel collision risks on complex sea routes including bay areas.
Field trials were conducted between November 2020 and September 2021 under an outsourcing contract with the Japan Coast Guard to demonstrate the usefulness of the new technology.
Fujitsu previously leveraged AI technology to calculate and predict vessel collision risks based on the current position, speed and direction of the ship.
Now, an additional algorithm has been added to this technology to calculate the degree to which the vessel is following its course, enabling more accurate risk prevention.
This new feature makes it possible to only provide alerts in situations with a high risk of collision – changes of the course along a route will thus no longer be falsely detected as dangerous steering.
Field trials of the technology were conducted at the Tokyo Wan Vessel Traffic Service Center under an outsourcing contract with the Japan Coast Guard, which manages maritime traffic control services.
Results of the trial demonstrated that this technology can reduce unnecessary alerts by about 90% on all sea routes, especially on curved sections where alerts frequently occurred.
This improved technology enables the early recognition of vessels prone to risks and speedy initial response to prevent collisions, while also contributing to improving maritime traffic safety by reducing excessive traffic control operations as well as human errors.
Based on the results of the field trials, Fujitsu plans to provide safe navigation support services beginning in March 2022 for players in the maritime industry globally.
Through this service, Fujitsu aims to ensure both the safety of maritime traffic control as well as vessel operation and will support the construction of resilient maritime traffic systems.
By upgrading the conventional collision risk prediction technology with this new algorithm, Fujitsu aims to provide a safe navigation support service that can detect collision risks with high accuracy even in curved sections of sea routes by March 2022 to players in the maritime industry globally.
Fujitsu also aims to provide a service equipped with an algorithm currently under development that quantitatively evaluates whether a vessel is following a route by analyzing the characteristics of the vessel, such as its size and type, as well as data from past navigation performance by September 2023.
