By Qi Bin

Ships are huge equipment which are significantly affected by environmental factors. At present,crew's judgment of the condition and navigation status of ships are mainly dependent on experience and theoretical knowledge, inappropriate decisions are therefore unavoidable, which will lead to unnecessary lost in human, resource and money. However, intelligent ships, which can be simply explained as ships based on“big data”, can apply advanced information technology,such as real time data transmission and collection,huge calculation capacity, digital modeling capability,remote control, sensors and etc. to enable ships to realize intelligent sense, judgment and analysis, decision and control to guarantee in a much better way navigation safety and efficiency, reduce to a great extent or even eradicate accidents caused by human element and avoid dispute with cargo owners. The difference between nonintelligent ships and intelligent ones can be compared,though inappropriately, with that between hand-made product and one produced from mechanical assemblyline. Judging only from efficiency, accuracy and safety,the latter is surely much better than the former. It can therefore be said that intelligent ships have the functions of being safe, economic, efficient and environmental friendly. The ultimate aim is to make things easy for shipowners.

The key point of intelligent ships is that it has the ability to analyze, make decisions and accumulate experience,i.e. it can incorporate and connect the relevant data from large amount of information before it makes comprehensive assessment and analysis. This requires ships to have high level data analysis system to make the most appropriate decision and operate onboard system to manage the propulsion, navigation and other systems,and with the increase of data collection, the function of systems will also be enhanced. Moreover, intelligent ships require not only being self-intelligent, but also the ship-shore connection. The supporting construction on shore cannot be omitted, otherwise, there will be no mentioning of information support and remote control.

The SAN: Ship Area Network developed by Hyundai Heavy Industries and ETRI was selected as the IEC international standard (IEC 61162-450). This tells us that the biggest advantage is to apply IT technology to manage comprehensively more than 460 units that are used to be managed independently, and by way of which, the main engine and other equipment related to navigation will be easily managed. At the same time,remote technology can be applied on shore to realize real time monitoring of ship status and even remote repair. The development of intelligent ships is not made overnight, but rather gradually, developing from one part to the whole and from sea to land. At present, the development of intelligent ships has just started, what we can do is to simplify and unify the onboard operation,which is the first step towards intelligent ships.