In a world first, the 180,000 cu.m LNG carrier Prism Courage arrived at the Boryeong LNG Terminal in South Korea after completing a 33-day voyage from the Freeport LNG terminal, Texas, using autonomous navigation..The Prism Courage left Freeport in the Gulf of Mexico on May 1st, and used Avikus’ AI-powered HiNAS 2.0 system to steer the vessel for half of its roughly 20,000 km journey to the Boryeong LNG Terminal in South Korea’s western Chungcheong Province. The Level 2 self-steering tech was good enough to account for other ships, the weather and differing wave heights. Avikus claims HiNAS’ optimal route planning improved the Prism Courage’s fuel efficiency by about seven percent, and reduced emissions by five percent.
This voyage was conducted under real-time monitoring by American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Korea Register of Shipping (KR) to verify the performance and stability of the technology. After receiving ABS certification of the voyage results, Avikus has plans to commercialize HiNAS 2.0 during the current year
