World’s first successful sea trial of autonomous sailing on a commercial container ship voyage

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. today announced that together with its two group companies and the following consortium partners have successfully concluded the world’s first sea trial of unmanned ship operation from port to port on 24th and 25th January, as part of the unmanned ship project MEGURI2040 led by The Nippon Foundation.

The following two points are major features of the consortium’s role in the MEGURI2040 unmanned ship operation projects:

(1) The consortium conducted the sea trial with two different type of ships: a coastal containership and a coastal car ferry, aimed at using the results to develop versatile technologies by identifying similarities and differences between the two ship types.

(2) It conducted mooring tests using a drone in a move toward automated mooring operation.

Since MEGURI2040’s inception in 2020, the consortium has conducted various elemental experiments to realize autonomous ship operation. In October 2021, MOL Marine & Engineering Co., Ltd. conducted a safety verification test using its owned 3D simulator before this sea trial.