John Cross

John Cross has been involved with autonomous ships for over 10 years. First in the design of them and more recently in looking at the skill sets required to facilitate the development and operation of autonomous ships. He led the research team looking at the Canadian Response to the IMO Scoping exercise and has subsequently been interested in what skills MASS operators will require and how well does that fit in (or not) with traditional mariner training. He has presented his work both nationally and internationally and is currently developing a postgraduate course on autonomous ships.

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Presentation

The making of an (autonomous) mariner

With commercial MASS projects in development one of the pressing problems for Marine Certifying Authorities and commercial operators will be that of qualifications and certifications. In the development of a MASS operator there are three stages that need to be considered. First is the prerequisite knowledge required for an operator. Second is the education or development of skills for an operator and third is the credentialing of the operator. This presentation will look at all three stages and outline various approaches that are currently being investigated.