After the anchor was lifted for a boat test ride off Incheon waters, captain Lee Jun-sik at Avikus, a local autonomous navigation software venture, turns to a tablet PC, not the helm, to steer the boat.

Lee simply types in where he wishes to go and then the system automatically comes up with the best and safest route.

“The route planning of the system comes after processing obstacles and marine-related data. Once the route planning is done and we touch this play button on the tablet, the boat starts moving,” Lee said.

When a fisher boat was sensed ahead, the boat, installed with Avikus HiNAS 2.0 autonomous navigating system, would change its direction to avoid a collision and return to the route once the obstacle was gone, thanks to its cameras and LiDAR sensors.

“Our artificial intelligence has learned various objects so it can change the angle of the boat’s movement accordingly,” said Lee. 

As an in-house venture under Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, Avikus achieved a huge milestone on June 2 with its Hyundai intelligent Navigation Assistant System (HiNAS) 2.0. With the system, Prism Courage, a 134,000-ton commercial tanker, autonomously navigated across the Pacific Ocean. It left the Gulf of Mexico on May 1 and arrived at South Korea’s western Chungcheong Province within 33 days.

Avikus will be commercializing HiNAS 2.0 on commercial vessels later this year and on recreational boats in 2023, after making a debut in the recreational boat market coming October at the Miami International Boat Show.

“Our goal is to become the global leader of not only commercial vessel autonomous navigation but also in recreational boat autonomous navigation,” said CEO of Avikus Lim Do-hyeong.

“Different to commercial vessels that has less than 500 units made in a year, the world’s recreational boat market is big. Currently, more than 10 million of them are navigating, and each year more than 200,000 of them are newly made,” Lim pointed out.

Avikus has grown at a fast pace, having sold the level 1 autonomous cruising system to over 200 ships which it collected a vast amount of data from.

“We already have the technology for a level 3 and 4 autonomous navigation as we have in our hands a lot of operation and simulation data. But in order to be able to introduce it, there is a need for marine law reform,” said Lim.

The company’s self-cruising system could also auto-dock the boat when arriving at the destination.

“Docking is when boat-related accidents take place the most because on a boat, there are no brakes,“ said Lee as the boat reached the pier. “With the wind and the waves, it’s hard to control the boat meticulously. But this system can help the boat dock safely.”