Implementing Remote Audio as a Diagnostics Tool for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships

The role of marine engineers is to maintain the operational state of all systems in the engine room such as to diagnose and rectify problems arising, and to understand what maintenance will be required to keep the vessel appropriately operational and safe. Through training and experience, the engineering crew can read and interpret engine room instrumentation, and employ their intuitive feel for normal operation in-situ. In order to examine the possibilities of future remote and autonomous uncrewed vessels, we developed a virtual reality simulated engine room based on a real vessel. Even though the end product is effectively a virtual simulation, the original audio from the engine room was recorded and used, thus providing a more accurate and immersive experience to the users. This paper examines the use and application of a remote server to feed audio and other data in the simulated virtual engine and to create hypothetical failures scenarios for testing and training. Experience engineers carried out different failure scenarios as they usually do onboard and provided valuable feedback. User testing suggests that upcoming paradigms of the Internet of Audio Things can become a vital element in future operations of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships.