The project’s background
Due to currents and tides, sediment is shifted every day along the bed of the Elbe. To keep an eye on the depth of the Elbe and the port basin, the Hydrographic Department at HPA is currently deploying traditional survey vessels.
Now, within the scope of a joint workshop with McArtney Germany, L3 Technologies and HafenCity, HPA has tested two different high-performance systems under the challenging conditions of Hamburg’s port.
The autonomous surface vehicles, however, cannot drive fully on their own. As safety takes top priority, they were still monitored from ashore.
Specialised in various application areas, more and more water drones, also known as autonomous measurement systems, have hit the market in the past years. Among these, there is a difference made between USV (Unmanned Surface Vehicle) systems and ASV (Autonomous Surface Vehicle) systems. The difference basically lies in the degree of their automation and their autonomy:
• USV systems are remotely controlled and react based on the user’s input; their ability to take decisions themselves is at most limited.
• ASV systems achieve awareness of the situation, without any human monitoring, by utilising high-tech sensors. Based on the algorithms for condition analysis and collision prevention, decisions are taken automatically.
Each vehicle class has its own reason for existing and, based on their advantages and disadvantages, can be leveraged for a specific application.
The leap in development from autonomous technology is, for instance, just as significant as that from steam or diesel ships. In future, ships will be sailing with smaller crew teams or no crew at all. Emissions will be reduced and safety increased. The start of this development is characterised by the use of ASV systems as an additional tool for standard or repetitive tasks. First, however, the legal hurdles must be overcome. For example, it is still not clear who is responsible if a drone collides with a ship. If and when HPA can implement the use of autonomous measurement systems in future has still not been determined. However, the tests during the workshop in the port were very promising.
