Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have developed SEANAV (Sea Navigation), a real-time digital twin platform that enables testing, validation and training of autonomous maritime navigation systems in realistic virtual environments, the institute announced on November 12.

Source: IANS

Developed by the Department of Ocean Engineering at IIT Madras, SEANAV builds a virtual ocean in which ships, sensors, ocean conditions and vessel traffic are simulated in real time. The team says it has already demonstrated autonomous path-following and AI-driven collision avoidance under realistic sensing and wave conditions.

The platform is led by Dr Suresh Rajendran, Associate Professor in the Department of Ocean Engineering at IIT Madras, working with Dr Athira M. Nambiar of SRM Institute of Science and Technology and researchers and students from the department, according to the institute's release.

Source: IIT Madras release via EduAdvice

A virtual ocean, calibrated on a 320-metre tanker

Built on the Unity3D engine, SEANAV recreates ocean waves, vessel movements and navigation environments, and has been calibrated using a benchmark tanker vessel approximately 320 metres in length so that results in the virtual environment closely reflect real-world commercial shipping operations. The system combines artificial intelligence, virtual reality and multi-sensor fusion, can run multiple ships through congested waterways at the same time, and offers an immersive VR interface for training maritime professionals.

The team has also built a custom dataset named DetectShips, comprising 14,000 real ship images, to support the platform's sensing work, IANS reported.

80%+Share of world trade carried by shipping
320 mLength of the benchmark tanker used for calibration
14,000Real ship images in the DetectShips dataset

The research has been published in the Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and presented at ASME OMAE conferences in Vancouver and Tokyo.

IIT Madras said SEANAV aligns with the Government of India's Sagarmala Programme and Maritime India Vision 2030, which emphasise smart ports, digital technologies and autonomous maritime systems. The institute says the platform addresses a core challenge for an industry that carries more than 80 per cent of world trade: autonomous systems must be proven safe before they can be trusted on real water.

Why it matters

Testing driverless ships in a simulator first lets engineers fail safely — SEANAV lets vessels rehearse collisions, storms and crowded channels virtually, so mistakes cost nothing before the technology ever reaches open sea.