Now, the world has entered the development period of "Industry 4.0", and vigorously developing intelligent ships and marine equipment is the strategic direction supported and advocated by the state:

In May 2015, China issued "Made in China 2025" to accelerate the development of marine engineering equipment and high-tech ships as one of the ten key areas of development.

In April 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Implementation Plan of 2016 Special Action for Intelligent Manufacturing Pilot Demonstration, which clearly pointed out that the shipbuilding industry should continue to carry out the intelligent transformation of key enterprises, production lines, workshops and factories.

In December 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Transport and the National Defense Bureau of Science and Industry jointly issued the Action Plan for the Development of Smart Ships (2019-2021), which clearly proposed that after three years of efforts, the top-level plan for the development of smart ships in China should be formed, the standard system of smart ships should be initially established, and the core technologies such as intelligent perception of navigation situation, automatic berthing and unberthing should be broken

In 2019, the Ministry of Transport and other seven departments jointly issued the Guidance on the Development of Intelligent Shipping, pointing out the direction for the development of intelligent shipping in the next 30 years, and proposed to build a global intelligent shipping development and innovation center in 2025.

In February 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and other eight departments jointly issued the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan" for the Development of Intelligent Manufacturing, which defined the specific objectives and main tasks of the development of intelligent manufacturing in China's manufacturing industry during the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan", and pointed out the direction for the development of intelligent manufacturing in China's shipbuilding industry. In the new wave of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, China's shipbuilding industry should accelerate the deep integration of the new generation of information and communication technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and advanced shipbuilding manufacturing technologies, promote the deep interconnection and collaborative response of the industrial chain supply chain, gradually realize the digitalization, networking and intelligence of the whole life cycle of ship design, construction, management and service, and accelerate the construction of an intelligent manufacturing development ecosystem, Promote China's shipbuilding industry to accelerate to the "era of intelligent manufacturing" and achieve high-quality development.

With the rapid development of the new generation of information and communication technology, digitalization, networking and intelligence have increasingly become the main trend of the future manufacturing development. The major shipbuilding countries in the world have accelerated the pace of intelligent manufacturing. In recent years, China's shipbuilding industry has also actively carried out the exploration of intelligent transformation. Through the collaborative innovation of industry, university, research and application, and the demonstration application of industrial enterprises, the development of intelligent manufacturing has made considerable progress, and the supporting system has been gradually improved, providing a good foundation for further promoting system innovation and in-depth application.

Industrial development needs breakthroughs

This is the first cross-border cooperation between Taihu Lake Laboratory and Huawei, which aims at the core technologies in the fields of data governance in the field of ship and ocean, intelligent laboratory, engineering application of ship intelligent technology and other directions, and aims at the direction of engineering application of ship intelligent technology and intelligent application of ship marine data, and completes the development of relevant intelligent equipment systems and the improvement of ship marine intelligence.

It is understood that the navigation of ships is greatly affected by the climate. At present, the judgment of the crew on the ship's status and navigation status mainly depends on experience and theoretical knowledge. In this way, it is inevitable that inappropriate decisions will occur, resulting in unnecessary human, material or financial losses. Intelligent ship is based on "big data" and uses advanced information technology, such as real-time data transmission and collection, large computing capacity, digital modeling capability, remote control, sensors, etc., to realize intelligent perception, judgment and analysis of ship.

The fundamental purpose of intelligent ship construction is to improve the safety, reliability, economy and environmental protection of ship navigation and operation; Improve shipbuilding quality and efficiency, and reduce energy consumption, material consumption and labor consumption per ton of shipbuilding. The purpose of promoting the development of the intelligent ship industry is to promote the "digital transformation and intelligent upgrading" of the ship industry and become a shipbuilding and marine power. Therefore, the development of marine equipment technology must focus on "green and intelligent" for a long time now and in the future.

In 2021, Mr. Wu Yousheng, an academician of the CAE Member and an expert in ship mechanics and ship engineering at the China Ocean Economic Expo (hereinafter referred to as the Expo), said that smart ship technology should change "focus on building the body" to "focus on building the internal organs and nervous system", promote the upgrading of "power, supporting and information equipment technology" with "intelligent technology", and improve the safety, reliability, economy and environmental protection of ship navigation; Secondly, we should combine automation, digitalization, networking and intelligence technologies, accelerate the development of China's high-end shipbuilding technology, make the production efficiency catch up with the world's advanced level, and help to achieve the "carbon neutral" standard.

Accelerate to the era of "intelligent manufacturing"

In recent years, intelligent ships have become the focus of the shipping industry.

With the acceleration of the transformation and upgrading of the entire shipbuilding industry, the world has put forward higher requirements for the intelligent level of the shipbuilding industry. In this context, the development of intelligent ship technology is the inevitable direction of the development of the ship industry.

Intelligent ship refers to the ability to improve the ship's own navigation ability, the ability to automatically perceive the logistics status, and the ability to make comprehensive and multi-level independent decision-making and control of the ship's navigation, management, maintenance, carrying or operation through the integration of advanced technologies such as perception, communication, network, control, big data, artificial intelligence, etc., so as to achieve the development goal of safe, reliable, cost-effective, environmentally friendly and comfortable ship industry.

However, the development of China's ship intelligence is relatively lagging, which has become one of the important factors affecting China's development to a shipbuilding power. Specifically, the ship's core supporting equipment is weak, the level of automation, digitalization and intelligence is low, and the ship's green manufacturing technology lags behind the world's advanced level.

Intelligent ship manufacturing involves multiple elements, scenarios, and application levels such as equipment, software, and systems. Intelligent manufacturing cannot be equated with "machine replacement", nor can it be realized only by hardware equipment, industrial software, and enterprise needs. It is a fundamental transformation of industrial model and enterprise form.

How to promote China's steady progress towards a shipbuilding power through the guidance of intelligent technology is an urgent area for China's shipbuilding industry and shipping business to break through.

To speed up the "era of intelligent manufacturing", China's shipbuilding industry first needs to further improve the top-level planning of intelligent manufacturing according to the characteristics of the industry, gradually explore the promotion path of intelligent manufacturing from point to surface, from the outside to the inside, and promote the intelligent transformation of intelligent scene, intelligent workshop, intelligent factory, intelligent industrial chain, etc; Secondly, it is necessary to make clear that innovation-driven is the core path for the development of intelligent manufacturing, strengthen the collaborative innovation of industry, university and research, carry out innovation in technology, process, equipment, software, management and mode, and promote the overall level of the quality of the shipbuilding intelligent manufacturing industry; Thirdly, it should be clear that data is an important basis for the development of intelligent manufacturing, and the innovation of the whole process of manufacturing, such as design, production, management, and service, depends on the data base. The development of intelligent manufacturing in China's shipbuilding industry needs to pay special attention to the collection and analysis of data, and pay attention to the application of digital twin technologies and concepts; Finally, we should continue to improve the construction of intelligent manufacturing standard system in the shipbuilding industry, promote the standardization of intelligent manufacturing to go deeper and deeper, deeply participate in international and regional standardization activities, and strive for the "voice" of international intelligent manufacturing standardization. At the same time, we should constantly cultivate innovative, skilled and professional talents, enrich the talent team, innovate the industrial ecology, and improve the ability of scientific and technological innovation.