Category: Blog

27 December, 2020 . 4 mins read

Functions and Challenges of Fleet Management

Fleet management refers to basic systems that provide vehicle surveillance which help manage and operate modern vehicle fleets. There are two main categories in a fleet management system (FMS): off-line and on-line FMS. An off-line FMS takes care of data that are recorded inside the vehicle, then processed and subsequently evaluated. On the other hand, an on-line FMS handles real-time information and data evaluation that happens when all the vehicles are connected on-line to a computer server. Generally, FMS covers the practices of overseeing, organizing, and recording all aspects of the fleet with commanding tasks such as vehicle maintenance and acquisition, driver and fuel management, health and safety management, and vehicle tracking and diagnostics. Because this needs quite a bit of oversight, in every fleet management system, there are fleet managers who carry out the logistics in the transportation industry.

Let’s look more closely at the challenges that fleet managers face and the functions an FMS has to offer.

Vehicle Maintenance and Acquisition

The role of fleet managers in vehicle acquisition might include, but are not limited to, evaluating changes to vehicle legislation, determining purpose and sustainability of vehicles, negotiating deals with vehicle manufacturers, and balancing fuel consumption, tax, and insurance costs, in addition to regulating employee expectations and safety. On top of that, it is necessary that the managers consider the re-sell value of vehicles that need to be unloaded. Budget allocation and keeping up to date with legislations are constant struggles for fleet managers.

Driver Management

While the FMS in the past were used mainly by the motor-carrier industry, such as trucking and shipping companies, it is now widely used by taxis and transportation services for people with disabilities, making fleet driver management essential for fleet management companies (FMCs). Through effective driver training, FMCs not only reduce costs while maintaining the same level of service, but also ensure the safety for both the transportation service provider and customer. Additionally, as fleet management has become more passenger-centric, dealing with disputes, differences of opinion, and managing conflicts have been newly added to the long list of responsibilities of a fleet manager.

Fuel Management

One of the biggest reasons that companies implement an FMS is to boost productivity and grow business. Fleet management achieves this by establishing fleet performance, keeping overall costs low, monitoring maintenance, and carrying out optimal operations for companies. Now, for most fleets, fuel consumption is the highest cost variable, and in a time when fuel prices are ever-increasing, a fleet manager’s role of balancing fuel cost is paramount to their job. It is their responsibility to evaluate and level out the types of fuel when adding new vehicles to the fleet, while working on fuel savings management.

Health and Safety Management

The annual accident rate for commercial fleets is around 20%. The rate gets even higher for industries such as pharmaceuticals because of the incomparable number of miles their fleet drivers must travel per year. Therefore, safety is one of the toughest challenges that fleet managers face, for both the driver and the vehicle. The fleet safety program that fleet managers govern establishes policies and plans that are necessary to help ensure a safe work environment for employees and protect against liability from vehicle accidents.

Vehicle Tracking and Diagnostics

In most modern vehicle fleets, an Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL), also known as a vehicle tracking device, is embedded to send the positioning information on-line to a central computer server. Fleet managers receive vehicle technical information such as fuel tank level, engine revolution, amount of fuel use, etc. to keep track of the vehicle condition and ultimately ensure safety of both the driver and vehicle.

In the past, fleet management was implemented mostly by industrial sectors such as trucking companies and fleet managers documented everything using pen and paper; however, the possibilities and role of technology has been evolving at an exponential pace, and have made it possible for fleets to generate even more data, expanding the role of fleet managers. Moreover, due to the increased accessibility of transportation that has now become an essential part of public life, fleet management has developed to become more passenger-focused. The implementation of FMS in day-to-day taxi fleets and transportation services for people with disabilities or mobility challenges are examples of the fast-changing automotive landscape.

Therefore, it is crucial for businesses with vehicle fleets to incorporate a software-based fleet management system that can help managers oversee the growing amount of data, resulting in reduced interruption and improved productivity.

Learn more about AUTOCRYPT’s fleet management solutions here.

10 December, 2020 . 5 mins read

The Automotive Industry – What We Can Expect in 2021

2020 has thrown the world for a loop. Unsurprisingly, most people are looking forward to 2021, and this includes the automotive industry. What trends can we expect next year, and are they necessarily going to be good ones?

1. More autonomy, less driving
2020 saw more vehicle manufacturers touting their autonomous driving technologies, and 2021 will be no different. In fact, autonomous vehicles categorized as SAE level 3 may be much more prevalent on the market. This means that more vehicles will be driven by the vehicle’s systems, though the human driver is still required to be on alert at all times.

While Tesla notably put its Full Self-Driving beta mode in the steering wheels of willing drivers, other vehicle manufacturers may not be too far behind as companies like Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota are also putting in maximum effort to stay in the autonomous-driving game.

2. Further improvements on infotainment software
With a visible increase in models equipped with more advanced autonomous-driving or assisted-driving technologies, the industry may also get major changes in the type of infotainment software applications available in-vehicle.

Earlier models of connected vehicles saw focuses on data-based infotainment like location-services and GPS navigation, but we are likely to see a shift towards actual “entertainment,” as drivers will look for more interactive elements of the vehicle besides manually driving.

In fact, software providers and OEMs may be battling it out for precious infotainment real estate, as OEMs have been developing their own operating systems with built-in infotainment services. Advertisement agencies may also become increasingly involved as information delivery expands into these platforms.

3. Electric vehicles & BEVs become the norm
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are nothing new, but also this trend is not really a trend at all. Electric Vehicles look like they will soon become the norm, as more nations are committing to significantly reducing or completely eliminating traditional International Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle within the next decade.

The United Kingdom announced in November 2020 that as part of a green industrial revolution, it would stop the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035, with plans for significant reduction starting in 2030. As the automotive industry tends to plan for regulation changes with designs of new vehicle models well ahead of time, we are likely to see more vehicle manufacturers committing to design and manufacture of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). In fact, Bentley, luxury vehicle maker, announced that it would stop making ICE vehicles by 2030, with an added commitment to be carbon neutral at the same time.

These types of proclamations by nations and vehicle manufacturers are likely to continue as the pressure to go electric by regulations as well as the environment continue to grow.

4. Resurgence of Mobility-as-a-Service
COVID-19 threw a wrench in some mobility services like ride-sharing, but services have been quick to adjust their business models. For example, several delivery services have hopped on the bandwagon, providing contactless, robot or autonomous delivery pods to ensure that businesses and consumers can safely exchange goods. As cities and nations scramble for transport alternatives alongside the hopes for a widely-distributed vaccine, Mobility-as-a-Service solutions are likely to make a resurgence in 2021. Analysts report that MaaS business models are set to exceed 52 billion USD by 2027, even with the aftereffects of 2020.

This rebound will not only jumpstart the competition in the MaaS industry, but it also pressures connectivity providers to ensure that networks are ready to support the sheer quantity of connections. Lost or delayed connections not only mean a deficit in revenue, but while on the road connectivity is key to ensuring safety for all of those involved.

5. More (attempted) attacks, more security
As the aforementioned trends continue to see growth, it is highly probably that there will be more attempted attacks. No vehicle is exempt, as even Tesla’s Model X was hacked in 2020 using a new key fob hack. Fortunately, the flaw was found by white hat hackers and Tesla rolled out a fix with an over-the-air (OTA) update—but unfortunately, this does not mean that it won’t happen again. Malicious hackers will always find new and innovative technology to prey on, putting manufacturers, service providers, and end-users at risk.

Thankfully, defenses will probably improve due to the regulation changes coming our way next year. In June 2020, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) working party WP.29 passed two new regulations mandating cybersecurity management systems for all new vehicles, going into force in 2021. Countries will be able to implement these regulations into national legislation, and manufacturers will then have until July 2022 to obtain system type approval for cybersecurity for all new vehicle types. By July 2024, all vehicles regardless of launch date will have to be fully compliant. Implementation can be complex but following guidelines by cybersecurity firms can be a great place to begin. For example, AUTOCRYPT has a free resource on how to begin structuring a cybersecurity management system along with consultation services on impelementation.

Because of the relatively short time spans of implementation, we will likely begin to see cybersecurity management by vehicle manufacturers prioritized and implemented, as well as government pressure to do so swiftly.

Counting down to 2021
While many of the trends of 2020 will continue in 2021, there is no doubt that the automotive industry will be forced to re-strategize business operations in order to acclimate to a post-pandemic world, whether in terms of embedded technology, software, or security—2021 will be a big year.

For more information on automotive tech and automotive cybersecurity, subscribe to our monthly newsletter at www.autocrypt.io/subscribe.

4 December, 2020 . 7 mins read

How Autonomous Vehicles Solve Urban Space Shortage

With more than half of the global population living in cities, space shortage is becoming an increasingly urgent problem for urban planners and developers. The two major challenges that impact urban residents the most are housing shortage and parking space shortage.

Housing shortage can be partially resolved by utilizing vertical space. Indeed, the number of skyscrapers built for residential use is quickly overtaking that of office buildings in major cities across the world from Toronto and Vancouver to Sydney and Melbourne. Yet even doing so is not enough to cool down the housing shortage as non-resident investors drive up demand.

In this blog, we focus on discussing the second challenge. In fact, parking space shortage and traffic congestion are much more difficult to deal with than housing shortage. As one can imagine, building upwards is not an option because it would be ridiculously expensive and inefficient to have a 30-storey parkade. Also, most cities do not have enough public funding to build elevated highways and tunnels at a large scale.

Like it or not, this urban movement is set to continue as the UN projects global urban population to reach 68% by 2050. Just as urban researchers are seeking new creative ways to solve space shortage, an unexpected potential solution has gained popularity both in theory and in practice — autonomous vehicles. Self-driving cars are expected to solve urban space shortage in three different ways: 1) by reducing the need for parking space, 2) by reducing traffic congestion, and 3) by increasing vehicle occupancy rate.


How Do Autonomous Vehicles Reduce the Need for Parking Space?

The idea is to have cars park themselves in the parking lot so that drivers can get off the car at the entrance and let the car do the rest of the job, just like having an automated valet parking system. So how and why does this system reduce the need for parking space?

First of all, each single parking slot for autonomous vehicles can be made much smaller than a conventional parking slot. This is because a conventional parking slot has to leave enough space for the car doors to open on both sides so that passengers can get off. When it comes to autonomous vehicles, the driver and passengers can get off the car ahead of time before the car enters the slot, so that no extra space is needed on the sides of the car.

Another reason is a reduction in the need for driveways. In a conventional parking lot, the driveways take up about half of the total land area (see Figure 1a). Civil engineering researchers at the University of Toronto have shown through their work that autonomous vehicles could potentially decrease the need for parking space by an average of 62% and a maximum of 87% (Nourinehjad, Bahrami, and Roorda 2018)*. The reason is that instead of having a driveway between every two rows of parked vehicles, a parking lot that is fully dedicated to autonomous vehicles only needs a driveway between every four rows of parked vehicles. In other words, there can be up to four rows of vehicles parked together without any driveways in between (see Figure 1b). When a “landlocked” vehicle needs to get out, the vehicle in front of it would automatically move out to free its way.

Figure 1. a) Conventional Parking Lot vs. b) Autonomous Vehicle Parking Lot
(Nourinehjad, Bahrami, and Roorda 2018)*

Nourinejad, M., Bahrami, S., & Roorda, M. J. (2018). Designing parking facilities for autonomous vehicles. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 109, 110-127.

How Do Autonomous Vehicles Reduce Traffic Congestion?

A common misconception is that autonomous vehicles are nothing more than cars with sensors that detect surrounding environments. In reality, SAE Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous vehicles are much more sophisticated than that. These vehicles are able to communicate with other vehicles on the road, with pedestrians and cyclists, with traffic lights, and with the entire transportation infrastructure, all through the internet. All the communications are enabled by V2X (vehicle-to-everything) technology embedded into the vehicles, and end up forming a massive smart transportation network. This brings us to the question: how does V2X technology reduce traffic congestion?

Surprisingly, the main cause of traffic congestion is not having too many cars on the road, but the delays caused by each driver’s reaction time. When a traffic light turns green, for example, it takes a second or two for the driver at the front row to notice the signal change and another 0.5 second before pressing the pedal, the driver behind starts pressing the pedal 0.5 second after the first car moves forward, and this 0.5 second delay stacks up for every car behind, accumulating to a significant latency — this is assuming that everyone pays full attention to the road. (We all know that one bad driver who is just too busy on their phone to pay attention to the signal change.)

With V2X technology, all cars waiting in line would be notified of the signal change with near-zero latency, so that all cars can start accelerating at the same time and move forward at the same speed. This would significantly reduce traffic jams. A research team from the Delft University of Technology discovered through their virtual experiment that under a particular traffic jam which lasted an average of 41.7 minutes with an average speed of 11.7 km/h, if only 10% of all vehicles had V2X technology, the average lasting time would be reduced to 3.6 minutes with the average speed increased to 41 km/h. This huge improvement is made possible by all vehicles being able to accelerate and brake at the same time (Wang, Daamen, Hoogendoorn, and Bart van Arem 2015)*.

* Wang, M., Daamen, W., Hoogendoorn, S. P., & van Arem, B. (2015). Cooperative Car-Following Control: Distributed Algorithm and Impact on Moving Jam Features. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 17(5), 1459-1471.

How Do Autonomous Vehicles Increase Occupancy Rate?

According to the National Household Travel Survey conducted by the US Department of Transportation, the average occupancy rate of vehicles on American roads dropped from 1.59 in 1995 to 1.54 in 2007. This means that not only are we having more cars on the road, each car is carrying less people, with a majority of cars on the road occupied by only one person. This low occupancy rate is largely due to the inconvenience of the public transit system of North American cities.

As SAE Level-5 autonomous vehicles start to go into their testing phase, traditional car manufacturers are starting to seek potential in the ridesharing market. Take General Motors’ subsidiary firm Cruise for example, the company recently developed Origin, a line of electric shuttle vans that are specifically designed for ridesharing. Without any driver’s seat and steering wheel, the vehicle is expected to travel fully autonomously on designated city streets, making ridesharing much easier and comfortable. As autonomous ridesharing becomes increasingly convenient to use, vehicle occupancy rates in cities are expected to increase, reducing the burden of city roads.

AUTOCRYPT’s Role in Autonomous Driving

AUTOCRYPT is a total cybersecurity solutions provider for automobiles, providing all the security software components that are necessary (and soon mandatory) to keep autonomous vehicles safe on the road. With two decades of experience in authentication and data encryption technologies, AUTOCRYPT’s solutions ensure the legitimacy of all parties involved in V2X communications and the integrity of all data being transmitted. Recognized as the best automotive cybersecurity product/service by the prestigious TU-Automotive Awards, and one of the top 5 global market leaders for V2X cybersecurity by Markets and Markets, AUTOCRYPT is the foundation for the future of autonomous driving, ridesharing, and everything mobility.

Watch this video to see a brief introduction of AUTOCRYPT.

To learn more details about AUTOCRYPT’s solutions and services, click here.

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28 November, 2020 . 5 mins read

The Rise of Autonomous Delivery Vehicles

The Rise of Autonomous Delivery Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles are growing in number, and many drivers dream of a future where they can simply be passengers on a commute, a road trip, or just a leisurely drive. Technology has been quickly developing, but what many may not be aware of is the quick, or possibly quicker, rate at which autonomous trucks are hitting the roads.

Let’s take a look at some of the trending topics when it comes to autonomous trucks.

Pandemic Trends

It’s no secret that many of us have been sheltering in place and locking down due to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. While social distancing, many people have been buying household goods and ordering food online for delivery, and even buying groceries through apps like Instacart. The demand for stores to move to e-commerce has seen a surge, and while this may seem like good news for business owners who may be having a difficult time with drops in offline consumers, it can still have some drawbacks. In fact, the demand may be too high for companies and laborers to keep up.

In Korea, a major online-shopping hub, statistics showed that online shopping amounted to USD 10.6 billion in May 2013, a 13.1 percent increase from the previous year. Food delivery rose 77.6 percent, and F&B online purchases went up 33.1 percent. The steep increase has led to some traumatic instances, with 14 delivery workers losing their lives in 2020.

(Credit: Nuro)


Many companies, therefore, have moved to utilize autonomous deliveries, either with drones, carts or in some cases trucks. Companies have been gaining investor interest.

A great example is Nuro, a California-based autonomous delivery vehicle company, who have been delivering goods autonomously since 2018. Nuro has received the first and only federal exemption for AVs by the US Department of Transportation as well as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and is currently operating in California, Texas and Arizona. The need for a socially distanced method of ecommerce does seem to be gaining traction.

Autonomous and Electric

Autonomous delivery vehicles like pods or trucks are a perfect use case for autonomous-driving technology, as often truck drivers have to go long distances. However, trucks have a much higher rate of carbon emissions because of the sheer size of vehicle and distance of driving. It’s estimated that heavy duty vehicles (HDV) are responsible for 30% of all transport emissions, despite the fact that they only make up roughly 5% of vehicles.

Therefore, it makes sense that the next stop would be to make them all electric, moving away from the traditional diesel-fueled trucks. Companies like Swedish startup Einride have jumped on the wagon, as they recently unveiled a new line of electric, driverless (with remote operator) freight trucks. The company expects to have them on the road in 2021, with emissions cut by up to 90% and fuel costs reduced by 70%.

The challenge for this new development of the electric ad autonomous vehicles will be range anxiety, as Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) often have a specific limit of driving range before needing to be charged. BEVs that are also HDVs often have mileage ranges of about 80-110 miles. This range may work for European nations, where distances are shorter and the number of charge points is greater. However, long-haul, cross-country drives within the United States may prove to be more of a feat. A more favorable starting point would be implementing city-wide delivery programs, where charging points are more densely available.

Security Concerns

Of course, when it comes to any new technology, we prioritize security. When looking at autonomous delivery vehicles, in theory they need to implement the same cybersecurity management systems and protocols with a lighter vehicle.


ECUs within the car as well as the network that they are connected to need security measures to be put in place, in order to secure communications and messages that are essential to the proper operation of the delivery vehicle.

Additionally, with trucks and larger HDVs, greater attention needs to be paid to sensors, as they have larger blind spots than lighter vehicles. With side-view assist and expanded LiDAR, trucks can reduce this risk. In 2010, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that with side-view assist, up to 39,000 crashes could be prevented each year.

(Credit: DOT Share the Road Safely)

Conclusion

While autonomous driving technology has been progressing relatively quickly, it is nowhere near Level 5 Full Automation where it can be truly driverless. In fact, many autonomous delivery services still ensure that a driver and an engineer are always on standby to take over manually if the need arises.

But this is not to say we will not be seeing full autonomous trucks anytime soon. It is important to keep in mind that though passenger vehicles are featured in the headlines, smart mobility expands into many other types of transportation – along with cars, trucks and pods are also in development and are deploying out onto public roads. Autonomous trucks will likely be one of the first wide-scale use cases because of its benefits, but we have been seeing a surge in robotic carts that are able to truly make social distanced deliveries happen.

However, as always with new technology, securing them and their environments is a large component of large-scale adoption, if not the most important component. As regulations like WP.29 continue to change the automotive industry, it will be interesting to see how delivery services fit into the larger picture of automotive cybersecurity.

To learn more about AUTOCRYPT’s autonomous vehicle security solutions, check out our page here.

24 November, 2020 . 6 mins read

Who Will Become the Next Tesla Challenger?

For the last two decades, the automotive industry has been focusing on disruptive technology and innovative productions. The advent of electric cars in early 2000 has provided more opportunities for new companies to challenge the industry – and Tesla has proven that it’s possible. While the existing manufacturing companies remained faithful to the internal combustion engine or by upgrading their models, Tesla has challenged the industry by producing its own all-electric car.

Run by Elon Musk, one of the world’s most powerful people, Tesla is now one of the top 10 most valuable American companies by market cap. Although the market paused for thought a few times, there’s no doubt that Tesla is becoming one of the most influential companies in the EV and autonomous driving industry.

According to Motor Trend, Tesla Model S beat Chevy, Toyota, and Cadillac for the ultimate car of the year honors in 2020 and according to Motor1.com tests, it has the lowest energy consumption of all BEVs. However, its cars are more expensive than traditional or hybrid cars (yes, the battery technology is very expensive!) and the company hasn’t been able to keep up with the high demands of production fueled by the green energy movement.

But it seems like Tesla isn’t the only startup disrupting the automotive industry after all. As hurdles are much lower than they’ve been in the past few decades, it’s been encouraging many electronics and IT giants to eye the EV industry with their innovative challenger electric cars. For instance, Sony has showcased their first Vision-S prototype, a full-fledged contempt car, in Las Vegas this January. Later on, Foxconn Technology Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV also discussed creating a JV to manufacture electric cars in China.

Lordstown Motors is developing a pickup truck called Endurance, intended for commercial fleets and it has been using some of the equipment that was used to make the Chevrolet Cruze. Lucid Motors’ CEO Peter Rawlinson was the Chief Engineer for Tesla before he left the company in 2012. Founded in 2007, their new car will have a range of more than 400 miles and be able to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in under 2.5 seconds. Faraday Future is another LA-based startup that builds luxury sedans designed for autonomous driving. Canoo, another Californian startup, is planning to offer electric vehicles next year by subscription starting in LA and gradually expanding the service throughout the United States.

Then there are startups from China such as Byton, with a mid-size electric SUV that has a 48-inch horizontal screen running the entire width of the dashboard. NIO is based in Shanghai and is one of the few companies that are building and selling electric cars. Byton is another startup founded by a former BMW executive in China and this company is accelerating to begin volume production in Nanjing starting next year.

Another Chinese IT giant Huawei, on the other hand, is well known for its consumer electronics and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, rather than electric car manufacturing, across the globe. But with the Chinese government and policy on its side, Huawei has started to scramble to march into the EV market. Since the Mobile World Congress 2018 event, Huawei launched its Intent-Driven Network (IDN) solution which helps evolve networks from SDNs towards autonomous driving networks. Moreover, they have also been developing autonomous driving networks in wireless network scenarios as well as aiming to simplify sites, architectures, along with protocols to build simplified networks.

Huawei has also been expanding its business and exploring autonomous driving networks and technologies with operators, proposing different levels of driving automation. They’re currently in the work of developing vehicles and infrastructure ends by rolling out products like the roadside unit, EI-based intelligent twins, and OceanConnect intelligent transportation platform. Although the company has announced that it won’t build cars but will just help automotive manufacturers like BYD to build better cars equipped with 5G that run on Huawei’s smart car system based on Harmony OS, the company’s investment in the automotive industry is still highly watched.

Almost Self-Driving Cars in 2020

Tesla stated that it will sell its self-driving computer chips and will be able to make its vehicles completely autonomous by the end of this year. Cadillac, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota are also making every effort to build fully autonomous cars. While the era of full self-driving cars hasn’t yet arrived, we should prioritize security technologies that make autonomous driving feasible without any external threats or interventions.

As experts predict there will be more than 125 million autonomous cars on the road by 2030, the actual concerns about autonomous driving-related to companies taking proper cybersecurity measures have been raised. Of course, protecting the vehicle itself is the utmost priority, but for now, companies are trying to build safer charging environments as the public has already seen attackers causing damage to electronic charging stations, which is the fundamental infrastructure needed to support EV operations.

AutoCrypt, Safeguarding the Fundamental Infrastructure

Many experts in the industry have been predicting the vehicles will become a rolling internet device, a smartphone on 4 wheels, which will become much more than just a means of transportation. Additionally, according to McKinsey, the automotive-related software market will double in value to USD 469 billion over the next 10 years. This means that your vehicle will not only become convenient, smart, and optimized but also a rolling data center, and securing the storage and data is the biggest legal challenge the EV manufacturers are currently facing.

Additionally, the current technology implemented at stations is mostly out-of-date open charge point protocol based on HTTPS which doesn’t encrypt data when safeguarding electric vehicle charging is the key to secure mobility. As driving an electric car is much more than just charging the battery, we need to make sure that our credentials and data are kept and exchanged safely through a reliable V2G security solution.

AutoCrypt PnC protects both the electric vehicle and its supply equipment (EVSE) during the Plug&Charge (PnC) process, which uses PKI technology. The solution verifies the identities of both the vehicle and the charger, ensuring safe exchange of information.

To learn more about AUTOCRYPT’s security solutions, click here.

17 November, 2020 . 5 mins read

Autonomous Vehicles… and Ships?

It is no secret that the era of the autonomous vehicle is already here. With Tesla premiering the beta mode of their Full-Self Driving mode, and other manufacturers following suit with developments in autonomous technology, the number of connected and autonomous vehicles on the road will only continue to increase. However, that means that it is only a matter of time before the autonomous capabilities move on from the road to other methods of transportation. In fact, autonomous ships may not be very far behind from self-driving vehicles.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) establishes the international standards when it comes to maritime traffic. The IMO defines ships that operate without human interaction as MASS, or Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships. They are also referred to as Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs), meaning that they are vehicles that travel on water, or smart ships, in the sense that they have capabilities to be able to travel on their own.

Although MASS or USV may be unfamiliar acronyms, autonomous ships and autonomous vehicles have more in common than you would think. Here are some commonalities between USVs and AVs.

Level / Degree Up

Just like a car has an autonomous driving level, decided by the SAE (see our blog post on different levels here), autonomous ships are also classified by levels of autonomy. However, the IMO officially defines the four levels (called “degrees”) from Degree one, where the system aids the seafarer’s decisions and navigation, all the way to Degree four where fully autonomous navigation occurs without seafarer or remote control.

Industry Consortiums

As a new(er) technology, autonomous vehicles have several organizations and projects that prioritize regulations and international standard compliance for testing, safety and continued development of the technology. It should therefore not come as a surprise that autonomous ships also have consortiums and researchers dedicated to continuing to define and develop the technologies. In 2016, a largely industry-led group called the Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks (MUNIN) published a detailed report which summarized three years of key findings regarding MASS.

Security First

As autonomous driving technology continues to advance and the deadline for WP.29 regulations approaches, a trending topic in the industry is security. For a car to drive autonomously on the road, it must connect in real-time to other vehicles, traffic lights, roadside units, and devices. If there is a vulnerability or a breach in this connectivity, true autonomous driving is not possible as it endangers the driver, passenger, and everyone around the vehicle. There is no reason why the same issue would not arise out at sea.

While there may not be a vessel right behind or next to a ship, sea vessels have other complex issues to figure out like weather conditions, route of nearby vessels, fuel capabilities, and load capacities to maintain. If there is a breach, there is the risk of danger to passengers, crew, as well as the sensitive products that may be in the middle of being transported. Hackers do not discriminate and will take a chance to infiltrate anything that seems of financial value or notoriety.

Why Autonomous Ships?

As the world becomes more interconnected, transport of goods will only increase. To optimize transport and minimize risk, it makes sense to develop autonomous ships – USVs can significantly reduce ship management costs as manpower and fuel account for over 80% of operational costs. Having unmanned autonomous vehicles will not only reduce costs but free up space. Minimizing amenities like food, water, and allowing additional cargo or fuel to be loaded will be groundbreaking.

Companies around the world have been taking notice. In 2018, Rolls-Royce and Finferries, a Finnish shipping company (state-owned), demonstrated the world’s first fully autonomous ferry in Turku, Finland. In South Korea, SK Telecom and Samsung developed an autonomous test ship. The 3.3-meter-long ship was equipped with 5G-based LiDAR, cloud-based IoT platform, as well as a real-time video monitoring solution. Korea’s government is also on board as the peninsula’s location is prime for maritime trade. The Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy as well as the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries formed a working project for autonomous ships and is expected to invest over 160 billion won up to 2025.

However, as we have already seen with the rise of autonomous vehicles, another commonality is that new, trending technologies tend to become new and lucrative targets for hackers. Much like the WP.29 regulations by the UNECE, it may not be long before we begin to see similar regulations for other methods of transportation, and ship manufacturers and seafarers may need to begin preparation sooner rather than later. While technology continues to develop, roadmaps for regulatory reform and systems and standards for autonomous sailing personnel and cybersecurity.

It is essential to prioritize security from the beginning – that is one commonality of which we can be absolutely certain.