Can machines be our teammates? Interacting with maritime robots, AI, and autonomous systems

This village is about transforming the future maritime industry in Norway. 70% of Norwegian exports come from the sea. While demand is expected to increase, fewer people are interested in maritime jobs. Enabling technologies like robotics, AI, and autonomous systems can help—but only if we design technologies to augment (not replace) maritime workers. This is a design challenge that requires bright minds from many different perspectives, from social sciences to engineering and everything in between.

Relevant competency

In this village, you can come from a range of different study programs. This will allow you and your team to dive into social, psychological, environmental, technical, engineering, design, human factors, philosophical, economic, and ethical aspects of the village theme.

Although this village is hosted by the Faculty of Architecture and Design, it does not mean you will have to design something. Depending on your interests, you can freely decide from which aspect you want to tackle the topic of your interest.

About the village

The village is hosted by the Shore Control Lab, a multidisciplinary lab with designers, human factors specialists, and technologists who are passionate about making maritime technology compatible with human needs.

Examples of ongoing and previous projects are (1) SHEREC, which looked into how we can use robots to make ship recycling less dangerous for the workers, (2) Autoteaming, which looks into how humans and machines can team up to safely navigate ships, (3) LASH FIRE, which aimed to prevent fires onboard car ferries, and (4) OpenRemote, which aims to design user interfaces for operating various maritime robots.

Expectations of the students in the village

We expect students to select a topic relevant to the maritime industry. As a starting point, the students can take inspiration from the projects that Shore Control Lab currently has. The students can also propose their own topics, given they are still relevant to the theme of the village.

External partners

As part of this village, you will be collaborating closely with the experts at the Shore Control Lab. Depending on the challenge you will work on, there are several external partners you can collaborate with. Examples are Kongsberg, Jotun, Torghatten, Moen Marin, Zeabuz, and many more.

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