Category: Technology

AI against the silent threat under water - Helsing's glider

New underwater glider from Helsing On 13 May 2025, Helsing, a young Munich-based software developer, presented its SG-1 Fathom underwater reconnaissance system and the Lura AI platform at parallel events in Portsmouth and Hamburg. The events, one at the traditional Royal Navy base, the other at the newly opened maritime representative office of the defence technology company in the German Hanseatic city, send a clear signal: in view of growing threats to critical underwater infrastructure - such as pipelines, fibre optic cables or offshore platforms - the need for long-term, networked and autonomous underwater surveillance is increasing noticeably. Cutting-edge digital technology is becoming a central component of modern maritime surveillance. And Helsing is responding to this with...

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Mannheim - Climate-neutral marine fuel from wastewater

The German start-up company ICODOS, a spin-off from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), wants to advance the shipping industry in terms of environmental technology and commissioned the world's first production plant for methanol from the wastewater treatment of a municipal sewage treatment plant in the city on the Rhine and Neckar rivers on 24 March 2025. The demonstration plant uses a patented process to purify the biogas produced and convert it into a climate-neutral marine fuel using green hydrogen. According to IMO estimates, the shipping sector contributes around 3 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions every year. This is because the majority of cargo ships still use propulsion diesel fuelled with heavy fuel oil or marine diesel. The...

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Autonomous seafaring - Anschütz sets standards

Anschütz, the German market leader for navigation and bridge systems, has developed and successfully tested an automatic collision avoidance system (CAS) as part of the Kiel CAPTN initiative (see below for more information). The automation of vehicles in a busy sea area such as the Kiel Fjord posed a particular challenge, the true dimensions of which only become apparent in practical application. During the lengthy series of tests, however, the situation analyses and recommended actions of the CAS coincided with those of the navigators critically accompanying them - a good basis for the further development of autonomous navigation. The CAS is based on an algorithm that analyses the maritime situation using conventional sensor data (radar,...

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Russia - New icebreaker for the Arctic sea route

At the JSC Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg, the shipyard, Rosatom as the client and its subsidiary Atomflot as the shipping company, as well as Russian government representatives, celebrated the completion of another large nuclear-powered icebreaker. The commissioning of the "Yakutia" (project 22220) will further advance the strategy of maintaining year-round transit in the Arctic region. It is the fourth nuclear-powered icebreaker of the LK-60Ja class. The government's goal is to expand the group of icebreakers for the Northern Sea Route to 17 ships by 2030 in order to double the total cargo volume from almost 38 million tonnes in 2024 to more than 80 million tonnes. At...

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Climate data 2024: North Sea warmer than ever

Last year, the North Sea reached its highest temperatures since regular measurements began. The Baltic Sea has also continued to warm. The latest data from the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) shows that the average water temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic Sea last year were significantly higher than the long-term average. The BSH has been determining average temperature values and anomalies since 1968 and has been compiling weekly analyses since 1995. The compiled data shows that the North Sea reached an average of 12.1 degrees, the highest value ever measured. The surface temperature rose by up to 1.5 degrees above the long-term average in...

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