Design of a Deployable Cargo Vessel Based on Autonomous Surface Vehicle to Aid Offshore Maritime Shipping: A Robotic Solution for Insufficient Manpower in Maritime Shipping Industry Under Singapore's Context

As a major port in the world, Singapore's waters are constantly full of docked ships. For these ships to have enough resources, such as food and oil, smaller boats are used to transport resources from shore to the ships. The current resupply operation is manually handled, expensive and inconvenient. The Deployable Cargo Vessel (DCV) has been developed to address these problems through automation, saving precious labor costs. The DCV is a small-size speed boat equipped with an electrical system and a hook catcher system specially designed for unmanned transportation between ships. The main system utilizes ArduPilot's Pixhawk 4 as its control unit and adopts vectored four-thruster configuration. The DCV can work continuously for 4 hours on the calm sea while being remotely monitored by a camera. The mechanical design is focused on the hook catcher which can catch and secure the payload from the DCV to the ships. This paper will explain the overall system design including the mechanical structure and embedded systems of the DCV.