Invited speaker at the Navy, Industry, Academia on Industry 4.0 and autonomous ships: the case of cognitive human element and training of the future maritime workforce

Industry 4.0 and its implementation is transforming industry. In the naval and shipping domain it is introducing autonomous and smart ships with the promise to bring safety and efficiency at sea. So far, autonomous systems can mimic certain cognitive processes and are able to perform some specific tasks. Nevertheless, they lack creativity and human judgment in solving unexpected problems, especially in emergencies. Today autonomous systems are at the stage that combined with human experiences and capabilities, perform any jobs better than humans or machines alone. This requires to keep the human in the loop for the foreseeable future. In this presentation, Reza and Steve will report on the outcome of research on the Seafarer Training Needs for Operating Autonomous Ships and the upcoming research on Simulation Training Program for the Future Autonomous Ship Operators.