The boss who spearheaded development at Inmarsat of systems able to transmit levels of data needed to digitalise shipping now believes true innovation is more likely to come from outside the maritime industry than within it.
“London Black Cabs did not invent Uber, and Hilton did not invent AirBnB. So is it really possible that the current players will invent unmanned ships, [or] ship traffic control,” said former president of Inmarsat Maritime Frank Coles at the Smart4sea conference in Athens.
Coles, who is now chief executive of maritime systems supplier Transas, went on to say a new model, with ships owned by large financial institutions, managed by huge operations centres, and routeing controlled through ship traffic decision support centres “may need new technologies, new communications and new people.”
Claiming that the current levels of digitalisation in shipping are being overhyped, Coles said: “Before we can really consider an unmanned ship we need to resolve several key elements of the business of ship operations.
"We need a workable eco system, we need connectivity and we need acceptable cyber security. It is my proposition that none of these exist today.”
Coles says he believe shipping’s eco system is currently “dysfunctional”.
At Inmarsat he was selling a communications link between ship and shore but he says that link “currently adds pressure to the ship and crew, it does not add value”.
One problem is a lack of standards for traffic control and communications. Those that do exist have a weakness in that they “attempt to try and tie in too many stakeholders not attached to ship operations”.
Coles says shipping needs to be focused to get change in the way in which the airline business has developed an eco-system for air traffic control.
“Connectivity is critical to a successful automated or unmanned ship and we are nowhere near the required level of capability for this to occur,” he added.
However, Coles also says he still believes that maritime communications need to have the same kind of pricing as in the aviation industry.
“This will enable the industry to embrace the connected ship into a smart ship. But, this alone is not going to create an unmanned or more remotely operated ship.
“In effect we need the reliability of the fleet broadband equipment and system with the bandwidth of an always-on pipe that is cost effective for remote maritime operations.”
But the question of cyber security still remains – and Coles is unconvinced by digital solutions built on AIS (automatic identification systems) positional data.
“This is, in my opinion a high risk strategy. Attack Infiltrate Spoof is a better way to think of AIS,” Coles said.
