Wednesday, March 11, 2026

HMM cap­tain approves of autonom­ous AI nav­ig­a­tion

Captain Park Sang-hyun of the HMM Emerald explains navigation equipment monitors on the bridge. [KO SUK-HYUN]

From Korea JoongAng Daily by Ko Suk-Hyun
 
A 24-hour AI autonom­ous nav­ig­a­tion sys­tem is begin­ning to take a more act­ive role on the bridge of a large con­tainer ship sail­ing the Pacific, with its oper­at­ors say­ing it can help plot routes, guide the ves­sel’s speed and improve col­li­sion avoid­ance.

HMM has been test­ing the solu­tion on the 13,000-twenty-foot-equi­val­en­tunit (TEU) HMM Emer­ald and plans to expand its applic­a­tion across its fleet.


 HMM's ship comprehensive situation room. /Courtesy of Han Ye-na
 
“It feels like we’ve gained one more savvy nav­ig­ator for the long ocean-cross­ing voy­age,” said Park Sang-hyun, the cap­tain of the HMM Emer­ald, refer­ring to the Hyundai Intel­li­gent Nav­ig­a­tion Assist­ant Sys­tem (HiNAS), an AI-powered autonom­ous nav­ig­a­tion solu­tion, on Feb. 26.
Park, with 23 years at sea and nine years as a cap­tain under his belt, said the sys­tem has proven its worth.

The 13,000-TEU con­tainer ship has been under­go­ing trial oper­a­tions since Novem­ber 2024 as the first HMM ves­sel to adopt HiNAS.

Captain Park Sang-hyun looks at the Avikus system in the bridge of the Emerald. 
Courtesy of Han Ye-na

The sys­tem was developed by Avikus, an autonom­ous nav­ig­a­tion firm under HD Hyundai Group, and has sup­por­ted the ship on trips total­ing 100,000 naut­ical miles (109,700 miles).
HMM plans to intro­duce HiNAS to 40 ves­sels by the end of this year.

The HMM Emer­ald, which oper­ates an eight-week round trip between Busan and Los Angeles on a U.S. West Coast route, meas­ures 335 meters (1,100 feet) long, 51 meters wide and 66 meters high, roughly com­par­able to a 10-story apart­ment build­ing. 
A total of 23 people are on board, includ­ing Korean deck and engine officers and Filipino crew mem­bers.

Step­ping onto the ship, which had arrived at Busan Port overnight, the heavy smell of fuel lingered in the sea wind. 
The highest point on board, the com­pass deck, was packed with obser­va­tion equip­ment, such as radar detect­ors.
 
The Hyundai Intelligent Navigation Assistant System camera unit is located on the HMM Emerald’s topmost deck. 
[KO SUK-HYUN]
 
There, the HiNAS nav­ig­a­tion cam­era unit, a box-shaped device about 31 to 33 cen­ti­meters (12 to 13 inches) by 24 cen­ti­meters, is installed.
 
“Six cam­eras — three optical and three infrared — serve as the ship’s eyes both day and night,” said Kim Hyeon-jae, a lead at Avikus. 
“Using data [from the cam­eras], the AI keeps the ves­sel on its planned track and main­tains its speed accord­ing to pre­set con­di­tions.”

The col­lec­ted data is trans­mit­ted via cables to the bridge, where the helm, charts and com­mu­nic­a­tions equip­ment are loc­ated. 
On a large mon­itor in the chart room, a video feed of real-time con­di­tions in front of the ship appears along­side inform­a­tion regard­ing the route, speed, water depth, rud­der angle and nearby ves­sels.

HMM’s container ship, the HMM Emerald, is berthed at Pier 4 of Busan New Port on Feb. 26.
[KO SUK-HYUN]
 
Jeon Tae-young, the HMM Emer­ald’s second officer, said HiNAS’s cap­ab­il­it­ies go bey­ond what earlier auto­pi­lots could do.

“The auto­pi­lot func­tions on exist­ing ships largely focus on [the ves­sel’s dir­ec­tion],” Jeon said. “HiNAS can set an optimal route on its own and sail based on that route.”

“If the nav­ig­ator inputs the desired arrival time for a des­tin­a­tion, the sys­tem auto­mat­ic­ally cal­cu­lates guid­ance for optimal engine revolu­tions per minute and speed by factor­ing in real­time weather and rout­ing,” Jeon added. 
“We’re work­ing with the AI by ana­lyz­ing a range of nav­ig­a­tion data in real time to improve effi­ciency and keep pre­cisely to the planned track.”

HiNAS also includes a col­li­sion avoid­ance func­tion that detects other ves­sels and sup­ports evas­ive man­euvers.

“When another ship enters a set range, [the sys­tem] alerts the nav­ig­ator and, if neces­sary, can alter course to avoid it and then return to the ori­ginal route,” Kim said. 
 
HMM Emerald second officer Jeon Tae-young uses the Hyundai Intelligent Navigation Assistant System’s “route planning” function to design a route from Busan Port to Los Angeles. 
[KO SUK-HYUN]
 
Jeon said the fea­ture is most use­ful in open-ocean stretches with little traffic, while manual con­trol remains the norm in con­ges­ted waters.

Pilot test­ing post-HiNAS adop­tion showed annual fuel sav­ings of 2.5 to 4.5 per­cent, along with accom­pa­ny­ing reduc­tions in car­bon emis­sions, accord­ing to HMM. 
A large ship’s annual fuel bill typ­ic­ally runs about 10 bil­lion to 20 bil­lion won ($6.8 mil­lion to $13.6 mil­lion), and Avikus said fuel sav­ings alone could allow the install­a­tion cost to be recovered within a year.

Full autonomy, however, remains a dis­tant goal, in part because mari­time rules are more com­plex than those on roads.

“HiNAS cor­res­ponds to Level 2 under the Inter­na­tional Mari­time Organ­iz­a­tion frame­work for Mari­time Autonom­ous Sur­face Ships,” said Kim. 
“Watch­keep­ing by crew remains essen­tial, with col­li­sion-avoid­ance func­tions requir­ing a nav­ig­ator’s judg­ment. Manual oper­a­tion is also the default in heav­ily traf­ficked waters.”

Even so, the fact that AI has begun to par­ti­cip­ate in oper­at­ing large com­mer­cial ves­sels that cross oceans is fuel­ing expect­a­tions that autonom­ous nav­ig­a­tion tech­no­logy could spread across the industry.

“It’s not at the point where AI can stand watch in a nav­ig­ator’s place,” Park said. 
“But it lets us focus on judg­ment and mon­it­or­ing, which reduces the bur­den and improves safety. In the future, it could help ease sea­farer short­ages caused by a shrink­ing work­force.”
 
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