By Wasana Nadeeshani Sellahewa
(Commonwealth) _ Transporting products and resources to and from various locations throughout the world is the responsibility of the shipping industry, which plays a crucial role in the global economy. It is a complicated and difficult environment where even small changes can have a big impact. Businesses in the shipping industry must invest in artificial intelligence technologies in order to stay competitive. AI may assist businesses in automating processes, streamlining workflows, and improving decision-making. The application of AI in the marine sector and its advantages for the shipping industry will be discussed in this article.
In recent years, it has become more apparent that AI is present in the logistics industry. Artificial intelligence has remarkable promise in this area, just like it does in manufacturing. AI-based transportation solutions can speed up land travel, but they also have uses in the marine industry. An essential component of the globalized economy is the movement of commodities, and the rising demands of consumers throughout the world necessitate further optimization in this area. In a word, AI is transforming the marine sector in three distinct ways: by giving automated units some autonomy, by analyzing processes and improving them, and by predicting trends in the future. To surpass the competition and accomplish sustainability goals, take advantage of all three of these chances.
Shipping businesses may enhance their vessel schedule with the use of predictive analytics. To plan their journeys as effectively as possible, they make advantage of the port calls data that the port community systems give, such as destination, arrival time, trajectory, and trip duration. The carriers arrange and reschedule arrivals based on data on vessel traffic to prevent delays and downtimes. They can deal with unexpected situations brought on by crises and required route alterations thanks to machine learning. ML is the ideal approach to handle vessel scheduling predictions since they depend on several input factors, in contrast to the conventional, rule-dependent methods. One of the fundamental uses of AI in the marine sector is, as we have already indicated, the provision of partial autonomy to automated robotic equipment. Machines powered by AI can place containers in the best possible way to utilize the given space.
Using computer vision to place the containers, the robots decide for themselves after learning through unsupervised approaches. What does it resemble in real life? Without going into specifics, let’s just say that the monitoring device sends an image to the interpreting device, which categorizes the container based on factors like size and form. The best location for the new container is then determined by assessing the current storage arrangement. In addition, it may reposition containers that are incorrectly placed based on previously recognized patterns. On the other side, the Covid-19 epidemic has shown that, despite the industry’s recent digital revolution, significant advancements in route forecasting are still necessary. The changing factors, such as wave frequency, tides, and winds, must be taken into account by the AI algorithms in order to generate the best path. Forecasts are wrong as a result of the worldwide ship circulation being drastically decreased, which has diminished data collection capacity. That caused the sector to reconsider its data collecting strategies. Relying on ships to gather data is not the most efficient method; nevertheless, satellites, which are a generally reliable source of data, do not give great precision. It may be improved while maintaining the data influx independent of market swings thanks to marine data buoys and virtual buoys, which are becoming more and more widespread worldwide.
The bulk of CO2 emissions in the logistics industry are caused by road transport, although shipping has dramatically increased its proportion during the past ten years. The need for international marine transportation will increase due to the e-commerce sector’s explosive expansion; as a result, we need AI solutions that help reduce the carbon footprint of ships, such route forecasting that takes fuel usage into account. In addition to reducing emissions, they can assist the carriers in lessening their environmental effect. Many shipping corporations use artificial intelligence to transition from linear to circular supply chain systems in order to accomplish these objectives.
