High reliability management and control operator risks in autonomous marine systems and operations

Abstract This paper's objective is to analyze the main real-time risks in operation of autonomous marine systems, which follow from various levels of autonomy (LoA). High reliability management (HRM) is an established framework for assessing real-time operator performance in complex infrastructures. In this paper, the framework is applied to two cases representing different uses and autonomy levels: one on marine underwater robotics focusing on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and subsea intervention, and the other addressing operation of a complex marine surface vessel with a dynamic positioning (DP) system. Usually, autonomous systems are associated with unmanned systems, but several manned systems (for example, ships with complex automation and DP systems) have specific control functionality that can be characterized as autonomous. This paper focuses on manned and unmanned systems with different levels of autonomy and major hazard potential. The most important research finding is having identified multiple, different operational states that vary across two or three LoAs, each state of operations having significantly different risks to be managed in real time. The application of the HRM framework highlights the importance of enabling reliable operator control and online risk management in the development of next generation autonomous marine systems.