A passenger sits inside the wheelhouse of Avikus' self-navigating leisure boat at Wangsan Marina in Incheon, Tuesday. Courtesy of Avikus

By Park Jae-hyuk

INCHEON ― Simply touching a tablet computer screen was the only thing needed for Avikus' self-navigating leisure boat to sail off of the coast of Incheon. As a passenger touches the "automatic" button on the screen after selecting the point of departure and the destination with a finger, the boat's navigation assistance system then automatically plans the optimal route, just as car navigation systems do.

When another passenger touches the "play" button, the boat's system starts the autonomous navigation function. The boat can also be accelerated and decelerated with the plus and minus buttons.

The boat's software system did not even need any manual operation to adjust its position for docking, thanks to its Lidar (light detection and ranging) mapping and tracking algorithm.

The series of autonomous navigation technologies were demonstrated to the press for the first time at the Wangsan Marina, Tuesday, by Avikus, a Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Group subsidiary, which specializes in autonomous navigation technologies.

"Using wireless internet, you can control the boat even if you are not on board," an Avikus official told reporters on the boat. "Our artificial intelligence system has memorized over 150,000 images so as to avoid obstacles automatically."

Cruising approximately 2.5 kilometers for about 20 minutes, the self-navigating boat with six passengers on board avoided motor boats and buoys by using sensors that can automatically recognize objects surrounding the vessel.

After avoiding obstacles, the boat returned to the pre-programmed route that the navigation system initially had set.

The augmented reality technology also enabled screens installed on the boat to visualize levels of each object's risk with different colors, identifying what the objects were.

Avikus CEO Lim Do-hyeong poses in front of the company's self-navigating leisure boat at Wangsan Marina in Incheon, Tuesday. Courtesy of Avikus

"In October, we will enter the U.S. market with our autonomous leisure boats," Avikus CEO Lim Do-hyeong said.

According to the CEO, what the company showed at Tuesday's event was the level 2 autonomous system, which requires human input even if the boat can avoid collisions automatically. Lim explained that a boat's driver takes responsibility in case of a possible accident.

He expects the level 3 system to be commercialized by 2026 for smaller boats sailing along the coast.

Lim emphasized that the company aims to take the lead in the self-navigating leisure boat market because its size is much larger than the autonomous merchant vessel market.

"The self-navigating system is targeted toward affluent customers," he said. "We saw a great business opportunity."

Established in January 2021 as the shipbuilding group's in-house venture, Avikus completed the world's first fully autonomous, unmanned operation of a cruise ship, during a demonstration event held in June 2021 on a canal in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province.

Last month, the company succeeded in the world's first autonomous trans-Pacific Ocean navigation of a liquefied natural gas carrier.

Chung Ki-sun, CEO of HD Hyundai, the holding firm of HHI Group, introduced Avikus' technologies to the whole world when he attended the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year.