scope:

This document is applicable to all marine vessels and offshore units, herein referred to as vessels.

This document is intended for use by marine vessel and offshore unit owners, operators, designers, shipyards, equipment and system manufacturers, integrators and regulators.

The autonomous functions covered in this document focus on the functional capabilities which enable the operations of marine vessels and offshore units and do not imply unmanned operations. Besides the autonomous functions, unmanned operations consider other activities and factors, such as system maintenance, incidence handling and manning requirements, which are out of the scope of this document. Fully autonomous and unmanned marine vessels and offshore units will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please contact ABS for further information.

To keep this document concise, references in this document are made to requirements in the ABS Rules for Building and Classing Marine Vessels (Marine Vessel Rules) and ABS Rules for Building and Classing Mobile Offshore Units (MOU Rules). Where the requirements are not stated for other vessel types, similar requirements will be applied. Contact ABS for clarification on applying these requirements to vessels not covered by the above-mentioned Rules.

This document is not applicable to underwater vehicle systems and hyperbaric facilities.

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to

i) Establish a goal-based framework for the implementation of autonomous and remote control functions on board marine vessels and offshore units. This framework also considers the interactions between the operations of autonomous and remote control functions with relevant stakeholders such as Port authorities, other vessels, etc.;

ii) Establish a risk-based approach coupled with a prescriptive set of requirements for the assessment of autonomous and remote control functions;

iii) Provide requirements on the risk-based approval process for the implementation of autonomous and remote control functions.