Case Study · Maritime / Remote monitoring

Avikus · KT: Real-Time Glasses-Free 3D Monitoring PoC for Remote Supervision of Autonomous Ships

A ship's view at sea, seen in 3D from the control center

MOPIC, together with Avikus, the autonomous navigation company of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, and KT, streamed the forward view of an autonomous boat over 5G in real time and showed it in 3D, without glasses, at a remote control center in Gwacheon. The PoC, held in November 2021, followed a boat navigating autonomously along the Ara Waterway near Gimpo Ara Marina on a glasses-free 3D display at the control center.

Autonomous ships are not entirely free of human supervision. While a ship decides its own course, a remote control center on shore watches the voyage and steps in when needed. What the operators rely on is the video sent from cameras on the ship.

The problem is that this video is flat. On board, you can tell at a glance how far you are from another vessel, a pier or a canal wall, but on a flat screen that sense of distance disappears. In narrow waterways or berthing, exactly when clearance matters most, operators have to estimate distance by switching between several screens and readings.

Bringing back that sense of distance in 3D comes with conditions. Monitoring means watching screens for long hours, so 3D glasses or headsets are not realistic, and video from a moving ship has to arrive in real time over a wireless network.

Avikus, KT and MOPIC split the PoC into clear roles. Avikus provided the boat equipped with its autonomous navigation system and the autonomous navigation control system; KT provided 5G/LTE connectivity and the remote control center in Gwacheon; MOPIC handled everything from 3D capture through transmission to the glasses-free 3D displays. The demonstration used a leisure boat, but the setup was designed to carry over directly to general vessels such as merchant ships, government vessels, naval ships, patrol boats, fishing boats and cruise boats.

How it fits together

The demonstration followed an actual voyage. As the boat left port under manual control along the Ara Waterway, attendees heard how the 3D display works and tried it themselves on the 15.6″ display on board. The route for autonomous navigation was then entered at the Gwacheon control center and sent to the boat, autonomous navigation began, and the control center monitored the boat's navigation status and surroundings live on the 32″ glasses-free 3D screen. Autonomous navigation ended when the boat reached the area near Gimpo Ara Marina.

Remote monitoring suits glasses-free 3D well. The operator's seat and the distance to the screen are fixed, which makes it easy to match the optical design, and since the job means watching a screen for long hours, viewing without glasses is a real-world requirement. The structure proven in this PoC — cameras on field equipment → real-time wireless transmission → a glasses-free 3D display at a remote site — later carried over to Kalmar's remote-operated crane PoC.

Watch the video

A boat under autonomous navigation, seen in 3D from the control center

The demonstration showed the forward view of a boat navigating autonomously on the Ara Waterway being monitored live in glasses-free 3D at the Gwacheon control center. Operators can see the depth of the space ahead of the boat and its surroundings from the screen at their seat, without glasses.

Existing control system unchanged

Because the 3D video used its own cameras, servers and 5G path, Avikus's autonomous navigation control and the existing control screens were left untouched. 3D can be introduced by adding a screen to a control system already in service.

Extending to remote operation

The same structure later carried over to Kalmar's remote-operated port crane PoC. Any field where equipment is supervised or moved from camera video — ships, cranes, construction machinery — can use it.

It is not limited to leisure boats. Anywhere a distant site has to be watched and judged through camera video, the same structure applies.