Remote Supervision of Autonomous Ships: Principles for Interaction Display Graphics

In the maritime industry, there is a focus on efficient and sustainable "greener" transport. One concept, that is a means towards this goal, is to supervise a fleet of partly or fully autonomous ships from a shore-based centre, sailing with reduced speed and crew for a reduced cost and fuel consumption. There is, however, a need to perform more research into the operational concept maintaining a high safety level. This paper focuses on interaction design principles for display graphics within the Situational Awareness framework, asking: 1) Which information is needed in displays to supervise and operate ships? 2) How should the information be presented for efficient and rapid perception of the greater maritime picture? And 3) How should display graphics support operators to look ahead, projecting the near future situation? These research questions are explored through previous empirical simulation studies and a workshop with experienced navigators. In addition, experience from the field of human-computer interaction and Situational Awareness for complex systems are used as inspiration. The contribution of the paper is design principles, for information graphics content and visual presentation. As the proposed principles are not targeting a specific type of display or situation, further work should focus on make them more specific for actual operational situations and implementations.

Keywords: Maritime, Autonomy, Operation centre, Human factors, Graphics.

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