ABSTRACT: It is well known that Weather Routing is one of the effective ship operation methods to reduce fuel consumption and many studies have been conducted to develop the effective calculation methods. However, most studies were performed focusing on the ocean going ships, and there were few studies made for coastal ships. The authors propose a minimum fuel route calculation method for coastal ships that use the precise forecasted environmental data and the propulsion performance data of the ship on actual seas. In the proposed method, we use the Dijkstra?s algorithm to calculate an optimum minimum fuel route suitable for coastal ships. Simulation study was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method using two coastal ships. As the result of study, the authors confirmed that the proposed calculation method is effective for fuel consumption reduction and is applicable for the operation of coastal merchant ships.

ABSTRACT: In this paper, we present a concept of an application of UAV drones as a possible low-cost device to avoid pirate attacks. Recent UAV drone can be operated in the range of more than 2km and transmit very clear images. Pirates will be approaching using a small boat and they will be climbing up along the sidewall of the ship. We tried several experiments in our laboratory to check how the drone can be applied to interfere the pirate approaching and climbing. We present a conceptual structure of an anti-piracy drone system and fabricated a part of device including a thermo camera sensor and a net launcher to stall the boat. The results showed this method seems effective considering the cost, although the operator must be trained to control the drone properly.