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

Design and optimization of remote operating centers

In 2023 the Marine Institute completed The Launch facility in Holyrood Bay on Canada’s east coast and the home of the Marine Autonomous Systems Testbed (MAST) initiative. One of the projects housed under MAST is our research investigating the development and design of remote operating centers (ROCs). ROCs are going to play a key role in the future of autonomous ships but surprisingly little research has gone into their design, operating configurations and user needs. This presentation will discuss the development plan of our ROCs, functionalities and pathways forward.