Providing autonomous ships with real-time advice
The DigiPACT project, which ran from November 2022 to May 2023, developed a digital twin that can provide real-time advice to autonomous ships on how to sail as efficiently as possible.
Container ship emissions
About 100,000 barges and 29,000 ocean-going vessels sail in and out of the port of Rotterdam every year. Although ships are the most efficient method of transporting goods worldwide, and the EU wants to further expand this sector, they still emit a lot of particulate matter and CO2.
DigiPACT is a digital twin, or virtual clone, of the lab version of the Port of Rotterdam, recreated in TU Delft’s pond. On the screen, you can see in real time where the ships sail in the pond, how fast, which berths are available and where the quay walls are. In the project, the cooperation partners focused on the optimal speed and route of the ship. For example, if there are a lot of waves, or there is a traffic jam further on, it is better to wait a while or slow down to save energy. We call this “green steaming. The ship can also detour or take a completely different route. We call this ‘green routing’. DigiPACT can also combine these functions.
While the ship is sailing, DigiPACT calculates which route and speed are the most efficient and passes this on to the ship every few seconds. Real-time communication between a digital twin and a ship is very innovative and has been developed thanks to multidisciplinary collaboration, including specialists in the field of robotics, simulation models and water and logistics.
Input for PATH2ZERO
For the insights realized within DigiPact on a lab scale to eventually be put into practice on the waterway, some work still needs to be done. The NWO-NWA project PATH2ZERO, in which DigiShape, Deltares and TU Delft also have a role, is taking the developed code into a comprehensive international project to build a digital twin for waterways.
Partners and collaboration
The following partners collaborated on the project:
- Resilient Delta (a partnership of TU Delft, Erasmus University and Erasmus MC), was the client and made the Port of Rotterdam available as a living lab.
- DigiShape was responsible for the organizational and legal embedding.
- Deltares, together with master student Max van Gijn and TU Delft’s RAS lab, took care of the further development and integration of the software and models.
- The Municipality of Rotterdam provided input on the issues facing the city.
Report and code
- The final report with the developed code can be requested through Fedor Baart, data science specialist at Deltares and TU Delft.
- Master thesis Max van Gijn: Bridging the gap bridging the gap between strategy and operations in autonomous maritime logistics
