At this stage, the intelligent ship technology of the world's major maritime powers has developed rapidly, and has made a series of important breakthroughs in technical standardization, information and digitization, autonomous navigation and other aspects, but there is still a certain distance from the real "unmanned ship" era. According to the international mainstream standards, the development of intelligent ships is mainly divided into four stages, namely interconnection, system integration, remote control and autonomous operation. Among them, the technologies in the first and second stages are relatively mature at present, but the application level is different. The third stage remote control and the fourth stage autonomous operation have high requirements for the reliability and stability of the ship's execution system. Although the advanced intelligent ship represented by the European "Yara Birkeland" has begun to enter the operation state, it has not really achieved fully autonomous operation at present. In general, there are still many bottlenecks in the development of intelligent ship technology.

First, the performance of many types of marine core sensors such as global positioning system, inertial navigation system, optical and infrared system, and radar system needs to be further improved. In the modern industrial system, as the main way and means to obtain information and data, sensors have penetrated into many fields such as ocean exploration, environmental protection, resource survey, medical diagnosis, bioengineering and so on. At present, the performance of various core sensors in the field of intelligent ships in terms of accuracy, adaptability and robustness is not enough to support the development of intelligent ships to a higher level. Intelligent ships need to process massive data when operating in a complex marine environment. If all types of core sensors fail to generate, process or fuse data correctly, the ships will not be able to conduct high-precision situational awareness, thus affecting the decision-making and action of the autonomous system. Therefore, more types and higher performance of marine core sensors are the necessary support for intelligent ship technology to move to a higher level.

Second, the existing maritime communication technology capabilities have not fully met the requirements of intelligent ships for high connectivity and high security. Compared with traditional ships, intelligent ships have a higher demand for the stability of positioning, navigation and timing systems, as well as for the data throughput of high-definition video, real-time radar and other services. In order to achieve more stable interconnection, intelligent ships need to build a variety of different levels of networks and channels to improve the connectivity between intelligent ships and the shore and between intelligent ships, so as to improve the stability of intelligent ships in operation. In addition, the intelligent ship field is also faced with the threat of network attacks, and the communication channel with higher security level is an important prerequisite to ensure the normal operation of the intelligent ship. At present, 5G communication technology, high power satellite communication technology and visible light or optical fidelity technology can help the development of smart ships in terms of connectivity and security. However, it will take some time for these technologies to integrate into the development system of smart ship technology, and related auxiliary technologies and supporting software are required. It is difficult to form a complete technical system in a short time, and further development is needed in the future.

Third, smart ships still have shortcomings in power selection, energy supply and energy optimization management. At present, the energy conservation and emission reduction of ships has become the mainstream, and the development of the global shipping industry towards low carbon has become the consensus of the international community. The ship energy management system with both cost control and energy conservation and emission reduction has become one of the important themes of the development of the ship industry. Relevant analysis shows that pure electric propulsion is the best power choice for the development of intelligent ships. On the one hand, electric power promotion can effectively meet the demand for energy conservation and emission reduction. On the other hand, electric propulsion can help intelligent ships better realize multiple functions such as autonomous replenishment, autonomous charging, autonomous maintenance, and help to further reduce their ship operation energy efficiency index. However, at present, battery technologies such as lithium-sulfur, lithium-air and aluminum-ion have not been fully commercialized, and emerging technologies such as supercapacitors are still in the early stage of development, which can not provide a coherent and structured energy architecture and management system for smart ships, thus limiting the technological progress of smart ships in power and energy to some extent.

Although smart ship technology is still facing many development bottlenecks, with the in-depth development and extensive application of advanced technologies such as information technology, sensor technology and big data technology, the development process of smart ship will be further accelerated. At the same time, Japan, South Korea and other major maritime powers in the world will further increase their investment in the development of smart ships and promote the development of smart ship technology in an all-round way. In the era of global decarbonization and intelligent industry, the importance of intelligent ships in the field of international shipping will be further enhanced, and the competition for the formulation of relevant international standards will also become increasingly fierce. In the future, the future development of smart ships will present the following three main trends.

First, a number of key core technologies of intelligent ships will make important breakthroughs, and the degree of autonomous and intelligent ships will be further improved. The development of intelligent ships involves many core technologies. In addition to the previously mentioned sensor technology, communication technology and energy optimization management technology, it also includes route planning technology, condition monitoring and fault diagnosis technology and distress early warning and rescue technology. Although some technologies still have problems such as weak theoretical support, early development stage and insufficient application, with the increase of investment from major maritime powers and the in-depth development of the same type of technology in other industrial fields, the development speed of key core technologies of intelligent ships will be further accelerated, and a series of important technological breakthroughs will follow. In the future, with the continuous development of the information age and the continuous progress of related technologies, the development of intelligent ships will be further accelerated, and their degree of autonomous and intelligent will be further improved.

Second, the competition in the field of relevant international standards will become more intense, and the world's maritime powers will continue to focus on the standardization of intelligent ships. At the present stage, the development of smart ships is in the ascendant, and the whole is still in the stage of technology development and market cultivation. For the key links of development, such as the definition and classification of smart ships, ship intelligent perception, decision-making optimization and other technologies, there is no unified international standard yet. The international rules will play an important role in "shaping" the future development of the industry. Since the first meeting of the ISO/TC8/WG10 Intelligent Shipping Working Group in June 2017, the major maritime powers have continued to pay more attention to and participate in the standardization of intelligent shipping. In addition to Japan, which continues to focus on the development of standards, South Korea, Norway, Denmark and other countries have also strengthened their attention in the field of international standardization of intelligent ships, and have submitted standardization proposals in many fields to speed up the layout of international standardization. In the future, the game of international standardization of intelligent ships will become increasingly fierce and become another mainstream battlefield outside the technical development system of countries.

Third, the business application model of intelligent ships will be more clear and is expected to open up a unique market operation mechanism. Judging from the current development situation, smart ships have not yet formed a clear business application model. Most smart ship projects are still in the early stage of testing, and are in a blank period in terms of safety supervision, airworthiness approval, crew allocation, insurance purchase and liability identification. There is still a certain distance from the realization of commercial operation. However, in recent years, the smart ship industry has gradually shifted from technology-oriented and policy-oriented to market-oriented. The smart ship project, represented by the "Yara Birkeland" container ship in Europe and the "Zhifei" container ship in China, has begun to conduct cutting-edge exploration in commercial applications, and is expected to open up a unique smart ship market operation mechanism in the future.