Uncrewed vessels that navigate themselves and notify operators when they need support from shore-based navigators. However, such ships also require an international regulatory framework. Now, the first version is in place, largely thanks to Norwegian research.
Modern sails on large ships are becoming increasingly common to save fuel – and also the climate. Now a research team is looking at how to maximize their benefits, and that turns out to be more complicated than anticipated.
The substructures for fixed offshore wind turbines weigh thousands of tonnes. If you are planning to install them at sea, only about five vessels in the world can lift that much weight. So now researchers are testing a completely new alternative.
This past winter, people in Trondheim have caught glimpses of a boat that seems to fly over the water out on the fjord. Many have also taken part in test trips. NTNU researchers have investigated what it will take for people to trust a boat that runs almost without a crew on board.
Connecting ships to charging stations is a bit of a hassle when you are out at sea. But with a new magnetic charging plug for boats – it is about as easy as putting a cup in a cup holder.
High-speed passenger vessels with diesel engines are currently the least environmentally friendly form of passenger transport – but they do not have to be.
Concrete has never had to meet such high standards. Deviations cannot exceed millimetre level. Even the curvature of the Earth must be taken into account in building the world’s most advanced laboratories.
Despite its long history as a maritime nation, Norway is struggling to recruit enough seafarers. Increased automation and autonomous ships have been hailed as a solution to this crisis, but seafarers themselves are concerned about safety. A recent study shows that there are 12 specific reasons why confidence in automation is low.
Building a port on land takes time. On water, the job can be done quickly. Hagbart Skage Alsos and his research colleagues at SINTEF are investigating how to build floating ports.
Tired of hauling your boat out of the water to clean its hull? Graphene can replace the toxic chemicals usually used to do this job.
By using two propellers that rotate in opposite directions, a ship can use less energy to move forward. New knowledge means that more ships can use the technology, including Hurtigruten’s Sea Zero project for its coastal cruise ships.
If a worn propeller requires repair, the CO2 footprint will be a full 40 percent lower if the job is done in Norway than if the repair is done in China, the researchers write in this article.
‘Bubbles’ – taste that word – and think soda, soap, play and well-being. But did you know that air bubbles can also reduce fuel consumption and emissions from oceangoing vessels?
The ship may need over five kilometers to stop. Perhaps not so surprising. The ship measures 62 meters in width and extends 21 meters below the water’s surface. Four models needed to test if the ship withstands launch.
Imagine that the wires to your house not only have to withstand high electrical current flow, weather and wind, but also salt water, ocean currents, temperature changes and large movements. This is the big challenge in connecting large, electrical structures at sea to the power grid.
Using well-known offshore technology from the oil industry, along with a completely new idea, the founders of Farmocean-subsea want to create equipment for aquaculture at sea. Way out at sea.
Could the Helge Ingstad maritime accident have been avoided if the Royal Norwegian Navy’s warships had been equipped with artificial intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is well suited to observe and understand what is going on around a ship. However, before we can allow AI to make safety-critical decisions, we need to be aware of how certain the decisions are, as well as why AI makes them.
International shipping does not want to be a climate bad guy and is aiming to be emission-free by 2050. A new tool designed by researchers in Trondheim can help shipowners who are searching for green solutions.
The EU is funding NTNU professor Ingrid Bouwer Utne’s work to make robots and autonomous systems understand situations better when there is imminent danger and give operators insight into what they are actually ‘thinking’.
The American eccentric billionaire, Howard Hughes, wasn’t afraid to make expensive investments in new technologies. So when he announced in 1972 that he was going to build a giant ship to mine manganese nodules from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, few were surprised. But the ship had a very different – and top secret – mission.
Research institutions from Norway and other countries have collected a great amount of data from the northern oceans in recent years. Many people want access to this information.
For the first time ever, researchers have been able to track eight fin whales in near real time for five hours, as they swam along a stretch of fibre-optic cable line in the Arctic. The breakthrough suggests that fibre-optic cable networks could be harnessed to help prevent whale deaths by ship strikes.
The risk of cyber attacks against a ship is real. The working crew on board must be allowed to practice handling these risks in a realistic way. Now they can.
