Building Confidence in Ammonia: How Can We Build Confidence in Ammonia as a Marine Fuel?

Ammonia is a viable zero-emission marine fuel. It can help meet greenhouse gas reduction targets set by governments, and a recent survey of shipping sector stakeholders by Lloyd’s List – the maritime publication – and LR identified ammonia as one of the top three potential fuels for 2050.

However, ammonia’s toxicity and lethality are significant challenges to increased adoption. Ammonia leaks can happen during bunkering or fuel combustion, either due to operational errors or mechanical failures. Acute Exposure Guidelines for ammonia have been established but might not be contextualised to the maritime environment.
Characteristics of Ammonia Fuel

• Easier to store and transport and has ten times the energy density of a lithium-ion battery (IEEE Spectrum, 2021)
• Sustainable, but might not be entirely net-zero depending on its production
• Exposure to ammonia over time is toxic and potentially fatal
• Leakages may happen onboard ship and during bunkering process

Challenges
Detection Technology

• Commonly used detection solutions are less sensitive than the human nose. (5ppm is the minimum level for the human nose to detect ammonia).

Post-detection workflow

• Current regulatory approvals require the submission of Quantitative Risk Assessments. Additionally, there is a need for regulatory agencies to establish robust procedures and capabilities for effective emergency response. Early warning systems to alert first responders of ammonia leakage will be an important operational tool.

Desired Outcome
Could include training crew, developing highly sensitive and digitalised sensors suited to the ship environment (and ideally wearables for the crew), and improving safety workflows in accordance with Class guidelines on ammonia limits. Successful solutions will be more sensitive to ammonia than the human nose, be digitalised for immediate feedback, account for both intensity and exposure time, prompt individual emergency response, and address various ship configurations and different safety scenarios.

Market Potential

• Maritime industry experts expect ammonia usage to grow to 7% of fuel by 2030 and 20% by 2050 (Lloyd’s Register, 2021)
• Global green ammonia market size was valued at USD 151.57 million in 2022 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 116.5% from 2023 to 2030 (Grand View Research, 2023)

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Accelerating Biofuel Adoption: How Can We Increase the Adoption of Biofuels Through Assurance of their Quality and Traceability?

Biofuels are a promising option for the maritime sector to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, owing to their “drop-in” characteristic: the ability to replace conventional maritime fuels without substantial modifications.
However, the adoption of biofuels faces several hurdles. Biofuels with fatty acid methyl esters content are prone to degradation, and traceability is a concern as the origin of biofuels affects their sustainability. Furthermore, there is a shortage of biofuel feedstock globally and some shipowners in Singapore are hesitant to utilize biofuels due to their higher costs and concerns over engine damage.

Challenges
Quality

• Shelf life of biofuels are shorter as compared to diesel
• Current solutions to address biofuel degradation and its corrosive impact on engines include using coatings on engines/pipes, additives to mitigate degradation, and lab testing of biofuel quality
• Oily nature of biofuels requires engine filters to be changed up to three times more regularly

Traceability
Tracing biofuels from their origin to their final use is essential for sustainability assurance since carbon emission profiles of biofuels vary depending on their source

Desired Outcome
Solution spaces could include improving the quality of biofuels, cost-effective quality testing methods, digital passports for biofuels that track them along the supply chain, or ways to increase feedstock supply (e.g., community sources) and produce biofuels more cost-effectively.
Successful solutions will:

• Have faster turnaround time to detect degradation with a cheaper, in-situ method; testing will be suitable for different onboard conditions
• Account for and verify nature of feedstock and well to wake emissions

Market Potential
Desirability

• To decarbonise, biofuels are the top alternative energy option for harbour crafts in the near-term
• Ensuring quality would reduce maintenance costs as biofuel degradation corrodes engine equipment
• Improving the traceability of biofuels would increase trust in biofuels and ensure that actual emission reductions are achieved

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Preparing for Electrification: How Can Electrification Technology and Infrastructure meet the Efficiency and Cost Requirements of the Maritime Sector?

From 2030, all new harbour crafts operating in Singapore’s port waters must be fully electric, be capable of using B100 biofuel, or be compatible with net-zero fuels such as hydrogen.

However, the lack of onshore and offshore charging stations, limited berthing space, speed of charging, energy density of batteries, efficiency of battery swap approaches and infrastructure investments required, end-of-life disposal, and cost concerns are inhibiting early adoption.

Challenges
Battery Swap

• Lighter weight of batteries will improve the viability of battery swapping at a mothership: too heavy a load may incur higher emissions
• Address fire hazard due to exposed connections when removing and fitting batteries
• Improving interoperability of a larger pool of batteries and the corresponding battery management system (BMS) for different vessel types will minimise charging downtime

Battery

• Close the energy density gap between Li-ion battery (known for having the highest energy density) and Marine Gas Oil, from the current 40 times difference down to 2 times difference. Lithium-sulphur batteries have energy densities 50% higher than Li-ion batteries but have not yet been commercialized.
• Lower cost of battery and modifications needed to encourage shipowners’ adoption

Desired Outcome
Solution spaces may include reducing charging times, improving the performance and capacities of batteries through battery designs, redesigning batteries to allow batteries to be of a lower weight and improve interoperability.
Successful solutions will:

• Be cost competitive
• Be easily usable by ship crew e.g., they will know how to optimize battery usage and not overload the battery
• Optimize for forecasted usage, optimal battery life routes

Market Potential
All new harbour crafts operating in Singapore’s port waters must be fully electric by 2030, have the ability to use B100 biofuel, or be compatible with net-zero fuels such as hydrogen.

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Transforming Carbon: How Can We Best Utilise Carbon as a High-Value Waste Stream?

For too long, carbon dioxide has been perceived as a waste product, with detrimental effects on the planet. However, with the increasing urgency to reduce carbon emissions, it is imperative to shift our perception and explore how carbon dioxide can be harnessed as a high-value waste stream. By unlocking the potential of the carbon value chain, we can create new opportunities for sustainable and innovative solutions, leading us towards a more resilient future.

Desired Outcome
Solution spaces encompass all products that utilize carbon as a raw material. Successful solutions must be suited to Singapore’s available resources and economic model.
Successful solutions should:
– Generate high value uses without massive carbon imports
– Overcome any concerns with quality, purity, or sufficient and consistent supply
– Be aligned with ship workflows and infrastructure

Your Journey to Smart Port Challenge Finals.
Start-ups submit their proposals to the innovation opportunities available.
The proposals go through a rigorous evaluation by a panel of maritime, technology and entrepreneurial experts.
Shortlisted finalists will be invited to enroll into PIER71TM Accelerate, an exclusive six-week market validation and customer discovery programme backed by world-class entrepreneurship education from NUS Enterprise and specifically curated for the maritime industry.
This culminates in the Grand Final where top teams get the opportunity to pitch in front of judges, corporates, investors and the maritime community to secure the top prizes of the Challenge.

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Greening the Supply Chain: How Can We Enhance Transparency, Traceability, Regulatory Compliance, and Accountability at a Sector-Wide Level to Enable a Green Maritime Supply Chain?

Singapore has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. In March 2022, MPA and industry partners released the Maritime Singapore Decarbonisation Blueprint 2050.
However, Singapore’s maritime sector transcends borders, various stakeholders, and multi-model transportation from land to sea. Greening the entire maritime supply chain is a huge endeavour to undertake and will have to overcome system-level complexities.

Desired Outcome
Solutions may include standards reporting systems, ecosystem-level coordination, and technological innovations that improve traceability and accountability.
Potential Solution Spaces:
Automate Accountability and Traceability
– Innovate low-cost, auto-calibrating sensors that measure a ship’s GHG emissions
– Use Application Programming Interface (API) to automate compliance assessment, which should be customisable to each SME’s requirements (drawing inspiration from Singapore’s Tax Authority’s Auto-inclusion scheme)
Enable Ecosystem Collaboration:
– Develop a collaborative, trusted platform to convene maritime stakeholders on ecosystem-level efforts e.g., promoting circular economy practices
– Build a central sustainability marketplace that compares decarbonisation solutions e.g.: fuel trading platform that represents different fuel types, prices points, and resulting emissions

Successful solutions:
– Should be low-cost, considering product price and cost of any retrofitting required
– Ideally should be in a plug-and-play form

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Improving Real-time Port Productivity: How Can We Streamline Communication and Have Real-Time Operational Overview of Vessel Activities in Port?

Jurong Port is a multipurpose port operator that provides berthing facilities for vessels and facilitates loading and unloading cargo from ships. However, ground staff overseeing terminal operations do not have efficient way to communicate effectively with HQ managers, and there is a lack of avenues for timely intervention by the managers resulting in operational delays. HQ managers need full, real-time visibility of how assets are utilised to better predict and plan for capacity and deploy optimal resources.

Challenges
At present, near real time operations are being shared across multiple platforms repeatedly by the same or different stakeholders, e.g., WhatsApp updates by stevedoring liaison officers to Jurong Port operational staff and similar updates by the same operational staff on an internal application to Jurong Port Management Staff. Furthermore, the operational staff are providing the same operational updates on various platforms such as WhatsApp, and its internal web applications, including Teams, TOS, calls and emails. The highly manual process of updating vessel information is time and effort-intensive and presented differently by various parties.

Stakeholders
Port Operator

• Stevedoring companies – Stevedore workers, Stevedore supervisors, Stevedoring liaison officers
• JP management staff – operational Leads, managers, EVP, GMs in operations
• JP operational staff – port officers, port operations controllers
• Agents from JP’s principal carriers – Documentation controllers, agency supervisors

Desired Outcome
Possible solution spaces could be:
– An operational mobile enabled solution to provide real-time operational updates, which is a single point of information flow and access solution for end users (internal and external) to retrieve operational information and update required operational information.
– A web-based app or digital platform that standardizes and integrates real-time data from digital and analogue sources such as video feeds, photos, forms and documents etc., to better match demand with supply, while serving as a common channel for communication across multiple users.

Successful solutions should ideally:

• Resolve inefficiencies and be centrally positioned to support the operational and business models of numerous onshore players. The solution could be extensible to other port operations and easily re-contextualised to other global ports. This is as onshore activities typically represent an incredibly significant part of the maritime industry’s value-add.
• Have a user-friendly interface and the user experience should be simple, intuitive, and timely, accommodating all levels of users.
• Be compatible for external service providers to access and feed real-time information into the platform. In addition, it would be useful to align with or tap into databases, platform, templates, and codes that may already exist.
• Classify meta data that incorporate photo and video stills

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Voyage Optimisation: How can we enable better interconnectivity and interoperability between ships and port systems?

Schulte Group and Innoport are the proposers of this innovation opportunity.

This is an industry challenge, not specific to only a single corporate, but Schulte Group will be one of the sponsors and trial partners; such as engaging the resources from Bernhard Schulte Ship Management (BSM), a leading global ship owner and manager with over 600 vessels in operation. BSM operates many vessels that call on bulk cargo ports like Jurong Port where voyage and port call optimisation are important aspects to improve productivity and safety.

Challenges

Schedule of vessel and berth availability are not available in real-time and not optimised for stakeholders. The arrival time of vessel may not coincide with the time of berth availability, which results in inefficiencies and fuel wastage when vessel travels from port to port at a speed higher than necessary, adding to extra air emissions. Optimising speed and waiting time has a tremendous effect on the Carbon Index Indicator (CII). Accumulated lost time waiting in port for berths means lost revenues to ship owners/charterers because of lower vessel utilization rates.  This issue is particularly prominent on tramping routes which are not fixed to specific ports and schedules, therefore has less predictability.

Stakeholders

• Ship owners
• Ship managers
• Charterers
• Ship Suppliers
• Crew
• Port Operators
• Port Authorities

Desired Outcome

• Solutions for ships to links up with relevant port systems (port authorities, port operators, port service providers) to exchange key information in real-time, and also feeds information into the vessel’s voyage optimisation and weather routing systems
• Machine-to-machine data exchange from Ship-To-Shore, with strong data privacy and cybersecurity
• Interoperability regardless of the manufacturer of the shipboard and navigational hardware/software or voyage optimisation tools.
• Proposed solutions should enable voyage and port call optimisation, minimise vessel waiting times, and help towards achieving decarbonisation objective.
• Solution should not incur high overhead costs or require extensive modifications to existing hardware/software on ocean-going ships which operate globally.
• For ship owners, the less time they waste waiting in port translates to more opportunities for them to reduce fuel consumption, minimize carbon emissions through sailing at the right speed and take on more charters to increase their revenues through greater vessel utilisation.

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Improving Cement Removal Process: How Can We Remove Cement Residue in an Automated, Effective, and Efficient Manner?

Cement carrier vessels play a significant role in transporting cement, a key building material for the construction of infrastructure.

However, during the unloading of cement from the vessel, there is often leftover residue that might be difficult to remove because of the complex and non-standard structures within the cargo holds, that make these residues hard to access.

Although high-pressure jets may be used to reach the odd corners of the cargo hold, it may create more dust and manual scrubbing is often needed when the cement has hardened and has adhered to the surface.

Current Trimming Process

Challenges

Manpower Crunch
– Manual scrubbing is labour intensive; there might be insufficient manpower in future, as fewer people are willing to take up such a physically demanding job.

Safety Hazard
– Significant amount of cement dust is released when the last residues of cement are removed, posing a health hazard to workers and causing irritation of respiratory system if inhaled.

– Stevedores are often required to work in odd physical positions to scrape the cement off the surface. The process also poses exposure to cement dust for stevedores.
Time-consuming
– Given that the operations of the vessel including loading and unloading are already contingent upon weather conditions, any delay caused by the time-consuming process of removing cement residues further exacerbates the issue and wastes valuable time; affecting the efficiency and productivity of the entire operation.

Desired Outcome
Solutions will overcome the manpower-intensive and hazardous nature of this task, ideally, with a self-operating or remotely controlled system that can remove the residue effectively and in timely manner.
Successful solutions will:
– Not damage cargo holds
– Take no more than 2-3 hours to clear each hatch
– Result in a clean surface; no lumps of cement residue
– Minimize manpower required due to the safety hazard posed by cement dust and time taken for removal of residues

Your Journey to Smart Port Challenge Finals.

Start-ups submit their proposals to the innovation opportunities available.
The proposals go through a rigorous evaluation by a panel of maritime, technology and entrepreneurial experts.
Shortlisted finalists will be invited to enroll into PIER71TM Accelerate, an exclusive six-week market validation and customer discovery programme backed by world-class entrepreneurship education from NUS Enterprise and specifically curated for the maritime industry.
This culminates in the Grand Final where top teams get the opportunity to pitch in front of judges, corporates, investors and the maritime community to secure the top prizes of the Challenge.

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Black Smoke Emission: How Can We Capture Dark Smoke Emission?

Ships emit black smoke due to incomplete combustion of fuel, which results in the release of small carbon particles harmful to human health and the environment. The quality of fuel used by ships, engine performance, and operational conditions affect black smoke emission. The International Maritime Organization has set a limit on the sulphur content of marine fuel to prevent black smoke emission due to high sulphur content. Proper engine maintenance, tuning, and optimizing operational conditions can significantly reduce black smoke emission, which is essential to protect human health and the environment.

Challenge
To capture dark smoke emission and assist a MPA officer in deciding if an infringement report is to be made for an offence under Port Regulations 66 – “No person may cause smoke, soot, ash or grit to be emitted from a vessel in such quantity or density as may, in the opinion of the Authority, be a nuisance.”

Current MARPOL requirement on smoke emission
The international standards on smoke emissions are based on Annex VI of the MARPOL regulations that addresses air pollution prevention requirements from ships. In 2019, MPA has released a guide for ships calling to the port, with information on prohibitions of sulphur content found in ship fuel.

MPA’s requirements on smoke emission
Regulation on smoke emission
Under Regulation 66 of Port Regulations, a port inspector will record the smoke emission for 15 minutes and compare the smoke colour against the Ringelmann chart to determine if exceeds Ringelmann 2 before raising an infringement report.
Measures taken by MPA
To curb the emissions of dark smoke, MPA has been taking a balanced approach by firstly educating the shipping community of the root causes and publishing guidelines to reduce emissions. Enforcement actions will be taken for offences.
Challenges
– Limitations of CCTV cameras. CCTV cameras are unable to identify the vessel which may be blocked by other vessels along the line of sight or is anchored/moving in front of a larger ship with a darker hull or superstructure fitting.
– Monitoring of black smoke emission during night hours. Currently, enforcement of black smoke emission is limited to daylight hours only due to visibility issues at night.
– Poor weather conditions:
a) Rain/haze etc – Poor visibility and smoke dissipation affects the accuracy of the shades.
b) Cloudy skies – A reduction in colour contrast due to dark clouds in the background poses challenges in shade identification.

Desired Outcome
Solutions should ideally:
– Identify and correlate the vessel emitting black smoke with its AIS information
– Provide an accurate assessment on the shade of the black smoke based on the Ringelmann Chart (see below)

– Capture and manage evidence, including video clips of the vessel during emission
– Incorporate a system prompt with an evaluation made based on the default criteria and evidence, so that officers can decide if an infringement report is to be made.
– Alert officers when a vessel is emitting black smoke

Stakeholders
– Marine Environment and Safety Department
◦ Maritime Safety Control Centre (MSCC)
◦ Port Inspectors onboard Patrol Craft
◦ Marine Managers

Current Enforcement Procedure
Upon notification of a report with sighting of dark smoke emission, a patrol craft will be deployed. The patrol craft will monitor the subject vessel for 15 minutes and take images and videos of the emission. The patrol craft will determine if an offence has been made and communicate with the Master of the vessel onboard to raise an infringement report.

Your Journey to Smart Port Challenge Finals.

Start-ups submit their proposals to the innovation opportunities available.
The proposals go through a rigorous evaluation by a panel of maritime, technology and entrepreneurial experts.
Shortlisted finalists will be invited to enroll into PIER71TM Accelerate, an exclusive six-week market validation and customer discovery programme backed by world-class entrepreneurship education from NUS Enterprise and specifically curated for the maritime industry.
This culminates in the Grand Final where top teams get the opportunity to pitch in front of judges, corporates, investors and the maritime community to secure the top prizes of the Challenge.

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Improving Real-time Warehouse Hub & Hub-Port Productivity: How Can We Gain Full Visibility of Warehouse Hub Operations, Facilities and Assets Utilization?

As a supply chain orchestrator, apart from overseeing cargo and container flow, PSA also serves as a hub operator, managing a multi-tenanted warehouse.

Currently, there is no integrated system that allows real-time visibility on how assets are utilised. Instead, existing systems of tracking resources rely on non-integrated CCTVs, WhatsApp, and physical coordination. Better control over service levels will benefit users and can support service agreements in bundling value-added services such as space brokering, job pooling, and permit documentation.

Challenges
The warehouses and hauliers work with lists of containers that have two days lookahead but may not share real-time visibility on the physical assets and conditions. They rely on phone or email communications, which can result in various inefficiencies. For example, at the docking bay, scenarios may include:

• Haulier arrived with container but there is no available docking bay
• Haulier arrived to truck out container, but it is not ready
• Empty docking bay waiting for container to arrive
• Container ready to truck out from docking bay but haulier has not arrived

Desired Outcome
Possible solution spaces may be web-based apps or digital performance monitoring systems acting as a real-time “control tower” or marketplace, integrating data from CCTV video feeds, files, photos, chats, etc., to better match demand with supply, while also handling exceptions. In addition, PSA is keen to offer a data-driven differentiated service that enhances the efficiency of Container Freight Station operations while reducing carbon emissions.
The digital solution will lend itself well to marketplace services that PSA is seeking to provide, such as:
– A broker for sharing of physical resources
– A master service provider to offer common services
– A marketplace for Cargo Consolidators and Freight Forwarders to sell cargo space in containers

Successful solutions should ideally:
Address user behaviours and concerns, such as shippers who might not be willing to share space due to competitive concerns.

The marketplace must interoperate not only between physical (e.g., CCTV vehicles) and digital systems (e.g., contracts, permits), but should be compatible for external service providers to access and feed real-time information into the platform
– Allow easy and secure integration to existing warehouse systems
– Be equipped with intelligence to draw insights from the data

Market Potential
Various operational aspects could be addressed, such as
– Docking bay and parking bay availability
– Movement of hauliers and trailers
– Container, pallet, and cargo volume, content, location, handling requirements
– Warehouse Hub heatmap
– Market pricing to enable resource and job pooling, and selling space
– Management interventions

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Driving Cyber Readiness: How Can We Improve the Maritime Sector’s Cyber Readiness?

As Singapore’s maritime sector digitises, and with the 2030 electrification target, the likelihood of cyber-attacks increases. Attacks are becoming more sophisticated and undetectable, targeting both insecure systems and human behaviour.
With increasing digitalisation, cyber-attacks may spread rapidly and indiscriminately, with severe implications to maritime operations as infamous cases of such attacks have already demonstrated.

Rising Cyber Risks:
– With digitalisation, including the emergence of Operational Technology (OT) with Information Technology (IT), there are new vulnerabilities
– Cyber pirates are targeting ship controls, and malware can spread across the supply chain as well
– Cyber hygiene practices among maritime personnel could be improved as some might be vulnerable to social engineering tactics used by cyber attackers (e.g.: phishing)

Desired Outcome
Solutions may encourage adoption of cyber security solutions, automate compliance assessments in line with upcoming mandatory cybersecurity standards, preservation of system after a cyber attack, and improve cyber hygiene practices through a gamified digital training platform.

Potential Solution Spaces:
– An ecosystem-wide mandatory cyber assessment that improves seafarers’ cyber hygiene and operational readiness
– Automated compliance to the upcoming IEC 62443 requirement that will be mandatory for classed ships and offshore installations contracted for construction from 1 January 2024
– Gamified training simulations for crew that can account for and evolve according to crew’s responses in real time
– A customer focused app or service that detects on a live basis the latest cyber vulnerabilities or attacks, gives guidance on specific cyber response, and automates compliance reporting to HQ

Successful solutions should be able to:
– Utilize on-board systems and consolidate information from other cyber databases with known vulnerabilities for detection of maritime-specific threats
– Support crew with timely alerts and clear steps to deal with threats
– Be accessible (e.g., understandable, easy to implement)

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

How Can We Make Marine Insurance More Efficient for the Customer and Insurer – Through Risk Prevention or Mitigation? How Should Insurance Respond to Emerging Marine Trends?

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital twins, renewables, autonomous vehicles, drones, robotics leverage modern technologies to improve efficiencies, safety, sustainability and performance in smart ports, ships, logistics and maritime services. The risk landscape in port ecosystems is changing and this creates opportunities and challenges for insurers.
– How can these technologies improve the efficiency of insurance for customers and insurers?
– What are the new insurance products that we need to develop for these modern technology solutions in ports?
– Can these new technology solutions also be used to improve or create new insurance products for the port ecosystem?

Note:
This Challenge is put up together with Lloyd’s Lab, the innovation hub for the Lloyd’s market. Shortlisted start-ups addressing this Challenge may be invited to participate in selected Lloyd’s Lab’s events, including but not limited to a Demo Day on 7th December 2023.

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Wireless Connectivity in Port Waters: How Can We Enable Electronic Transactions and Data-Intensive Applications in Port Waters?

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) is driving the digital transformation of the maritime industry and positioning our Hub Port and International Maritime Centre for the future.

Singapore has one of the most efficient and reliable ports in the world, but certain port and harbour craft operations and processes are still labour intensive, and paper based. These could be due to legacy practices, lack of technological solutions, or international/local regulatory issues. Without efficient, reliable, and secure broadband wireless connectivity in our port waters, many of these port operations will not be able to be further automated or performed electronically. Immediate use cases include digital bunkering, digital ship supplies, remote pilotage and drones operations.

MPA is prepared to provide regulatory sandbox environment for technology solutions that require exemptions to existing regulatory restrictions where safeguards are in place.

Challenges

Conventional wireless communications such as Satellite Communication (Satcomm), 4G (and 5G progressively in 2024 and 2025) and AIS have the following limitations:

1. Line of sight (LOS) issues, e.g., service provider’s harbour craft (bunker supplier, ship supplies provider, towage provider) communication signals can be blocked by another bigger serviced ship.
2. 4G/5G has limited range and reliability in port water environment
3. AIS has limited bandwidth and real-time capability to deliver content rich applications.
4. Very few locations in our port waters for installation of base station.
5. Satcomm has much higher costs (both CAPEX and OPEX) and poorer latency than 4G/5G communication, where the low latency is necessary for certain applications e.g., remote pilotage. Moreover, most of the harbour craft does not have satellite communication equipment installed.

Desired Outcomes

The proposed innovation should provide a holistic way for systems, applications, machine and personnel at sea to carry out electronic transactions, regulatory submissions, workflows, signatures, documentations, and forms filling efficiently, reliably and securely between service provider vessels and service consumer ships in our port waters. Overhead costs, new installation or modification should be kept minimal especially for ocean going ships which operate globally and adopt global standards.

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.

Open Category

In addition to these 13 innovation opportunities, start-ups with technologies or solutions that can address Smart Port, Smart Ship, Smart Maritime Services and Supply Chain, Crew Safety, Training & Wellbeing, Green Technology & Decarbonisation are also welcome to submit proposals in an open category.

In the application form, select ‘Open Category’. Your proposal should explain the specific problems you are aiming to solve and demonstrate the innovation you are bringing to address them.

Call for Proposals for this Innovation Opportunity is now closed.