Watch Again | Control and Communications Ireland Joint Chapter Webinar – Autonomous Vessels’ Operations Compliant to COLREGs by Dr Vasso Reppa, Delft University of Technology
The vision of maritime sector includes the autonomous, unmanned operation of marine vessels. Autonomy is characterised by several levels that vary with the:
- Extent of deployment of cyber systems (e.g. ICT, sensor networks)
- Number of human operators
- Role of both of them in decision-making and control.
Autonomous vessels have started to be applied to inland and short-sea transport operations. The main focus of this presentation will be the design of software agent systems for the autonomous guidance and control of vessels sailing in confined waters (eg ports and waterways) and performing terminal and harbour towage.
The proposed design follows a model-based approach, considering physical interconnections (ie towline) and conditions of mixed traffic. It will also discuss how collision regulations (COLREGS) set by the International Maritime Organisation are embedded in the design in order to guarantee safety.
About the Speaker
Dr Vasso Reppa has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Maritime and Transport Technology of Delft University of Technology since 2018.
She obtained the doctorate (2010) in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Patras, Greece. From 2011 to 2017, she was a Research Associate with the KIOS Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence in Cyprus.
In 2013, Dr. Reppa was awarded the Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship and worked as a Research Fellow in CentraleSupelec of the University Paris-Saclay, France from 2014 to 2016.
Her current research interests include multi-agent fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control, cooperative control, adaptive learning, observer-based estimation, and applications of autonomous systems in (waterborne) transport and smart buildings.
Dr Reppa has been involved in several research and development projects (e.g., INTERREG “AVATAR”, H2020 “NOVIMOVE”, NWO “READINESS”, Marie Curie ITN “AUTOBarge”).
