As part of what it calls a “further simplification” of its business Rolls-Royce has announced it will carry out a strategic review of its commercial marine operation including possible sale to a new owner.

Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) has teamed up with Rolls-Royce to jointly research technology it sees as leading to autonomous ships in the future.

Autonomous shipping has been much in the news these past two weeks after a flurry of separate developments in Denmark and the UK. 

Lloyd’s Register Foundation is making a £10m investment to help fund the first five years of a research programme into the safety of robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) that it has established in conjunction with the University of York, UK.

These are challenging times for shipping with owners and managers having to juggle difficult markets, regulatory change and technology developments, all at the same time as their day-to-day business.

Finland is looking to a future of electronic and autonomous pilots as Finnpilot Pilotage joins the One Sea autonomous maritime ecosystem.

Despite all the talk of autonomous or semi-autonomous vessels classification society ABS says it is seeing no demand for such ships from owners, and is instead focusing on technological developments for the world's existing fleet.

Autonomous ships will not become a mainstream reality in the next few years due to unresolved cyber-security issues on the technology believes Lar Jensen ceo of CyberKeel.