EGNSS Hull-to-Hull

Project Information

H2H

Grant agreement ID: 775998

DOI

10.3030/775998

Project closed

EC signature date 30 October 2017

Start date 1 November 2017

End date 31 May 2021

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Space

Total cost

€ 2 999 117,50

EU contribution

€ 2 489 382,25

Coordinated by

KONGSBERG SEATEX AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - H2H (EGNSS Hull-to-Hull)

Reporting period: 2019-05-01 to 2021-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The overall objective of the H2H project is to address the need of the maritime community to navigate safely in close proximity of other vessels and objects, being stationary or moving. This will assist mariners in making correct navigation decisions. Further, this will be a fundamental condition for autonomous vessels.

The H2H approach will allow actors to establish uncertainty zones for own vessel as well as neighbouring objects with high precision and high integrity. This approach would be a tool to provide more efficient and/or safer maritime operations, and it can be a valuable support to the control of autonomous vessels.

The project includes implementation of a pilot sensor package, to be demonstrated in Trondheim, Norway (simultaneous operation), Mol, Belgium (auto-mooring operation) and Leuven, Belgium (inland waterway operations).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

H2H project kick-off performed on 8/12-2017 and the project finished on 31/5-2021.

H2H web-site has been established: https://www.sintef.no/projectweb/hull-to-hull/. The website has been maintained and updated with progress during the project.

Project administration set up, with data storage, reporting templates and document templates.

All deliverables have been reviewed and approved. The H2H concept has been elaborated and consolidated, and reflected concept description and system requirements. This basis, together with demonstration planning, has lead to the definition of in pilot system requirements and requirements for safe and secure communications. A preliminary business plan has been prepared, which will be finalized for final review after second period.

For the final period all project deliverables have been reviewed and approved.

A main outcome of the project was the three demonstrations that were run as online events, demonstrating live use of the H2H concept in the different use cases:
* simultaneous operation with two vessels working together
* auto-mooring operation with an inland waterways vessel auto-mooring to a quay
* inland waterways docking and straight sailing.

During the final reporting period, the following activities have been carried out:

Dissemination:
1. Continuously update of the project website: https://www.sintef.no/projectweb/hull-to-hull/
1. 2nd project flyer distributed at the 2nd ICMASS conference in Trondheim 2019.
2. 11 papers/publications from SINTEF Ocean, SINTEF Digital (SINTEF AS) and KU Leuven. A detailed list of publications is found in Deliverable D9.2 Dissemination material.
The deliverable D9.2 Dissemination material covers disclosure of the project results on the web, presentation at conferences and publications in conference proceedings and scientific journals.

Communication (workshop and media engagement)
The communication activities are reporting in two deliverables D9.3 Yearly workshops and D9.4 Media engagement.

Yearly workshops:
• During the last reporting period we manage to have 2 internal workshops before the pandemic. Both were arranged in 2019 in combination with relevant conference and workshop.
• There have been none internal workshops in 2020 and 2021.

Symposium:
• The project has been presented at two different symposia related to autonomous inland shipping and autonomous ship.

Targeting regulatory bodies/standards:
• IHO Data Quality Working Group has proposed to include the uncertainty zone concept into S-100 Standard/Framework
All these 3 main communication activities are covered in deliverable D9.3 Yearly workshop.

Media engagement:
The project has been promoted in different social media as LinkedIn and webinars related to the 3 demonstrations and a separate webinar on maritime 5G. There have been none physical meetings since 2019 due to the pandemic.
The media engagement activities are covered in deliverable D9.4 Media Engagement.
Both deliverables D9.3 and D9.4 covers the main activities for two-ways interaction with different stakeholders within autonomous navigation.

Exploitation of project results:
Exploitation activities after project's lifecycle are covered in deliverable D9.5 Plan for Exploitation after Project Finished.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

At the end of first reporting period the project the results are promising with regard to expected performance. Presentations at different conferences and other fora have shown a great interest in the H2H concept, and it is expected even more interest when actual demonstrations have been completed in the second period.

At the end of the second project period, including the demonstrations, the following has been concluded:

Kongsberg Setaex studied a use case with a simultaneous operation (simops) between two vessels working together. It is concluded that the measurement and display of vessels with hull to hull distance vectors and the uncertainty zones is a promising technology. The H2H demonstrator can be used to check out different HMIs and will be valuable in collecting feedback from potential users. For traditional navigation more work will be required to develop good 2D and 3D views that are optimized for the navigator. For the autonomous case a part of the safety analysis will be to determine the confidence levels that are required for the H2H information.

Auto-mooring use case:
Demonstration day open to a public has taken place on 21st of May, due COVID-19 restriction the event was thought a webinar. During the webinar, details about the project design, results and mooring procedure were provided and explained. Additionally, several videos of the autonomous mooring system made at the location were presented for the public, which provided a clear idea how the system works.
Further step the aim is a complete autonomous operation considering the quay approach, docking and mooring procedure. For that, the GNSS and camera system shall be fully integrated with the vessel's main engine and thruster.

KU Leuven conducted an experimental study with 32 participants to quantify the impact of the H2H concept for Inland Waterways (IWW). Although there were some limitations, e.g. limited sample size, the results explained in D8.3 validate the contribution of the H2H system in single-handed sailing and docking tasks in IWW. After this study, it can be concluded that the H2H system is a useful aid that improves the ship handling accuracy of the skippers in IWW. Given that a Shore Control Center was used for vessel-skipper interaction, this study could also be considered as a pioneer work on quantifying the impact of other navigation aids such as the H2H system.

Hull to hull project logo

Hull to hull project banner

Hull to hull concept with hull to hull distance and uncertainty zones