Page 19: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2022)

product line of any of our contemporary manufactur- ers: we do everything,” said Wood. “When we sit in our forecasting meeting, we are forecasting well over 400 finished goods … it’s a long meeting!”

The Future is Now

As the world’s waterways become increasingly congested, situational awareness and real-time, ac- tionable intelligence is increasingly in demand to conduct safe, efficient operations. Modern vessels increasingly sport higher levels of automation and autonomy, a step-process toward reduced crews and eventually uncrewed. Case in point is Furuno’s use of augmented reality technology, a key first step to- ward automated ships of the future.

“A product that is just starting to emerge right now is our AR100, an augmented reality device,” said

Wood. “It’s nothing that is mandated by the market or required by regulation. You have to have a gy- rocompass on board, you have to have a radar on board; but you don’t have to have augmented reality technology.”

Augmented Reality

According to Matt Wood, a product that is just starting to emerge is Furuno’s AR100, an augmented reality device.

AR100 merges multiple technologies: camera, ECDIS, radar,

GPS, heading, satellite compass, doppler speed log and satellite doppler speed log ... merged into a heads-up display.

Wood admits “it’s not a regulatory requirment, but there are companies that want to embrace it.” Furuno has intentially started small and inexpensive. “We’re looking at, ballpark, $25,000 to add it to an existing for Furuno bridge. But we envision that this kind of technology is going to continue to take off” and drive future developments in autonomy.

Pictured left is the head-up display; below is ‘the kit’.

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