DEMO: NHNEMIA – ISALOS
The rapid transition towards Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) calls for new competences in maritime education. This demo presents the work of NHNEMIA and ISALOS, the student research teams of the School of Engineers of the Merchant Marine Academy of Macedonia, on the design, implementation and field-testing of a low-cost Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV). To stay within a €1,000 budget, a commercial RC racing boat was converted into an autonomous platform built around an Arduino UNO controller, a NEO-6M GPS receiver and an upgraded high-torque steering servo, at a final cost of about €800. A planar waypoint-steering algorithm computes the target bearing and commands the servo, while throttle was fixed at 80% to keep the hull on plane, giving 20–30 minutes of endurance. After trials in the Academy’s port and in Syros, the vessel competed in the international Aegean Ro-Boat Race in speed, endurance and collision-avoidance tasks. Supply delays prevented the installation of obstacle-detection sensors, so the collision-avoidance course was run on a pre-programmed route. In the final trials the vessel capsized in ferry wakes and water ingress disabled the GPS module, highlighting the need for robust sealing and a more representative hull. The demo also traces the evolution of unmanned vessels, from Tesla’s 1898 Teleautomaton to today’s MASS, and the emerging IMO regulatory framework. A roadmap is proposed towards ArduPilot-based control, LiDAR and computer-vision perception, photovoltaic power and a catamaran or displacement hull. The project shows that marine engineering cadets can design, code and operate the automated systems that will reshape their profession.