Digitalization of High Speed Craft Design and Operation Challenges and Opportunities

In recent years, global demands for safe and sustainable ships led to dramatic changes in maritime industry. Digitalization is expected to play important part in the future. This is supported by analysis of the autonomous ships market which shows that digitalization of large ship types such as tankers and container ships is well on track. Although to date designs of autonomous High Speed Craft (HSC) have been developed, there are only a few studies on the impact of digitalization on design and operations. This is because of the challenging operational profile of these assets across a spread of waterborne activities namely fishing, leisure, patrolling and rescuing. This paper reviews literature of relevance on the potential of digitalization of the HSC sector in the Baltic. An overview of the systems that could be partly digitalized and how technology developments may influence operations are also outlined.