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Today's shipping industry is experiencing a shortage of properly trained and competent deck and engine officers. This problem is becoming more acute with each passing year and traditional methods to resolve it apparently do not work. It has become obvious that cargo vessels must be less dependent on human operators. The solution lies in the replacement of manned vessels with autonomous ones. The introduction of autonomous vessels encounters several barriers, which need to be analyzed to find ways to overcome them. It requires a multipronged analysis of existing regulations, technical limitations, cyber security, and co-existence of manned and unmanned vessels in waters with dense traffic. The most difficult problems lie in international regulations, which were written for manned vessels only. Such rules need to be reworked before the deployment of autonomous vessels can be sanctioned worldwide. Technical issues are being gradually resolved with the introduction of new technologies. Special attention should be given to the cyber security of autonomous shipping as it requires the transfer of very large amounts of data through wireless networks. Accommodation of manned and unmanned vessel traffic may require a new approach for ship routing to separate both kinds of traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of autonomous ships in shipping industry is increasingly being analysed and occupies the maritime sector. In the maritime industry, the introduction of autonomous underwater crafts began first this trend, after which the development of autonomous surface ships has followed. Unmanned vessels include ships operated remotely by an operator on land and autonomous ships that are fully operated by the computer programmes and only in exceptional situations the ship's crewmembers or other human resources may be involved. The commercial application of these facilities is becoming more and more certain and this topic is increasingly being discussed. This trend obviously poses a huge challenge to all maritime actors, as well as lawmakers at international and national level. Namely, although the current development of maritime law has effectively regulated most of new technologies, all these standards and regulations have been adapted for the use of the conventional manned ships. A number of questions concerning the possible change in international and national regulations regarding the implementation of autonomous ships have been raised. It is considered as a priority within the framework of IMO unification instruments and changes in the Maritime Code of the Republic of Croatia. This paper presents various legal aspects of the use of autonomous ships with the aim to define the autonomous ship and to examine how present international conventions and national regulations could adapt to provide the legal framework to the introduction of autonomous ships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• System-theoretic safety control structure is revisited to identify research directions in the domain of autonomous shipping. • 47 research papers are reviewed. • Results indicate that most of scholars focus on the sharp-end of the system: its technological aspects. Despite the concept of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) being in the limelight of research and development effort within the shipping industry, there are still some existing research gaps. These pertain not only to technical solutions to be implemented but also to the issue of the impact of new technology on maritime safety. In an attempt to identify these gaps, we perform a literature review of the operational features of remotely-controlled merchant vessels. The framework is based on a safety control structure developed in accordance with the principles of System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA). The results indicate that most scholars focus on the high-end components of the system, while some organizational and human-oriented issues remain under-explored. These results can be found relevant by scholars and industry partners active in the domain of autonomous shipping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]