MSE International together with RED Scientific have been successful in winning BridgeAI funding from Innovate UK to demonstrate the feasibility of using AI techniques to improve maritime decarbonisation. The project is called DriveWise.

Maritime transportation is undergoing two transformations: decarbonisation of propulsion systems and de-crewing/automation (including remote/autonomous operation). This requires significant advances in condition monitoring (to improve the system availability and safety) and in system optimisation (to maximise reduction in energy use and carbon emissions).

A number of all-electric and hybrid-electric marine propulsion drivetrains are being developed to reduce emissions from maritime transport. This trend will accelerate as net-zero targets get more imminent and as IMO Marpol regulations are tightened. This creates business needs that are not yet being adequately met, including:

Monitoring of drive characteristics (eg battery status) to detect operating states and use-cases which accelerate degradation;

• Enhanced condition-based maintenance of drives and batteries to maximise availability, optimise replacement planning and minimise risk of failure at sea; 
• Optimisation of hull clean scheduling to minimise consumption of costly net-zero fuels (bio-fuels, e-fuels); 

The DriveWise project intends to show the feasibility of using AI techniques to deliver actionable (by human or machine) insight from drive system data to meet one or more of the needs outlined above. It is hoped this feasibility project will lead to trials  of these techniques on real vessels in the future.

MSE International are experts in delivering funded innovative projects in the maritime industry and will gather datasets associated with the vessels' drivetrains including details of any associated problems (failures, degradations or other anomalies.

RED Scientific is an independent research, technical support and engineering company who will trail AI/ML techniques with the goal of showing that it is feasible to predict failures and degradations that may occur. 

Bridge AI is designed to empower UK organisations to harness the power of AI through support and funding. The £100M investment fund comes partly from Innovate UK and the Technologies Mission Fund (TMF). More information here.

To be kept up to date with activities, projects and events in the area of maritime decarbonisation, sign up to the MSE Maritime Decarbonisation Interest Group.