Wartsila Voyage has introduced Wartsila SmartMove Suite to the global shipping market. This flagship offering for semi autonomous sailing features the industry’s most advanced sensors and high accuracy ship control systems, effectively taking the concept of automated dock to dock operations to the next level. Fully retrofittable, the SmartMove Suite can soup up existing vessels with next-generation capabilities to improve safety, efficiency and productivity on the water. The technology enables navigation officers to perform at a higher level.The first order was placed by American Steamship Company, a subsidiary of Rand-ASC Holdings LLC, and has been installed on the MV American Courage, a 194 metres Great Lakes self-unloading bulk freighter with a cargo carrying capacity of 24,300 gross tonnage. This is the largest ship ever capable of performing automated docking and dock-to-dock sailing operations. The winding, often narrowing Cuyahoga River in Ohio, US, can be heavily congested, making it by far the most challenging of shipping routes for any vessel using automated sailing and docking technology. The Wärtsilä solution has been successfully tested on the American Courage since March 2020.Wartsila Voyage provides a standard hardware setup with redundant controllers and displays, along with a sensor suite (comprising gyro, MRU, wind, and GNSS sensors). This is connected to a single digital platform through which five software products are available: SmartDock, SmartTransit, SmartEntry, SmartPredict, and SmartDrive. The core blocks of software (including controllers, sensor processing, Thruster Allocation Logic and track follow) are sourced from Wärtsilä Voyage’s Dynamic Positioning portfolio, which has been in use over many years in some of the world’s harshest environments.
Wartsila Voyage has introduced Wartsila SmartMove Suite to the global shipping market. This flagship offering for semi autonomous sailing features the industry’s most advanced sensors and high accuracy ship control systems, effectively taking the concept of automated dock to dock operations to the next level. Fully retrofittable, the SmartMove Suite can soup up existing vessels with next-generation capabilities to improve safety, efficiency and productivity on the water. The technology enables navigation officers to perform at a higher level.The first order was placed by American Steamship Company, a subsidiary of Rand-ASC Holdings LLC, and has been installed on the MV American Courage, a 194 metres Great Lakes self-unloading bulk freighter with a cargo carrying capacity of 24,300 gross tonnage. This is the largest ship ever capable of performing automated docking and dock-to-dock sailing operations. The winding, often narrowing Cuyahoga River in Ohio, US, can be heavily congested, making it by far the most challenging of shipping routes for any vessel using automated sailing and docking technology. The Wärtsilä solution has been successfully tested on the American Courage since March 2020.Wartsila Voyage provides a standard hardware setup with redundant controllers and displays, along with a sensor suite (comprising gyro, MRU, wind, and GNSS sensors). This is connected to a single digital platform through which five software products are available: SmartDock, SmartTransit, SmartEntry, SmartPredict, and SmartDrive. The core blocks of software (including controllers, sensor processing, Thruster Allocation Logic and track follow) are sourced from Wärtsilä Voyage’s Dynamic Positioning portfolio, which has been in use over many years in some of the world’s harshest environments.
