Is Full-autonomy the Way to Go Towards Maximizing the Ocean Potentials?

Growth prospects for ocean economy are promising because ocean industries are addressing such as food security, energy security and climate change. However, safety and efficiency are the challenges of ocean operations. Increased automation is believed to solve these problems. This paper the impact of automation on safety and efficiency. A literature review of ‘Human factors’ mainly from aviation and maritime industries is presented to untangle the human-machine relationship characteristics increased automation is introduced to operators. A literature review of Hydrodynamics, Guidance, and Control (GNC) technologies is presented to introduce the state-of-art and associated. It is concluded that, if the industry’s drive is safety and efficiency, then full-autonomy is, at present, the way to go. Remote control, instead, could facilitate a feasible future, while focused research and are in need.