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South Korea’s traditional smokestack industries, which have been struggling against a flood of low-priced goods from China, are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to reshape the landscape.

Last week, Maeil Business visited Pier 4 of Busan New Port, where the ultra-large container ship HMM Emerald was docked.


The vessel – 335 meters long, 51 meters wide, and 66 meters high – is equivalent in scale to a 10-story apartment building.

On the compass deck, the ship’s topmost deck, a small white device, about the size of two palms, stood in stark contrast to the massive hull.

The device is a HiNAS Control camera unit developed by Avikus Co., the autonomous navigation subsidiary of HD Hyundai Co.

Equipped with six cameras, it serves as the ship’s “eyes,” monitoring surrounding waters day and night.

“At night the sea is pitch-black and virtually nothing is visible, but this device identifies distant obstacles and displays them on the monitor,” said Captain Park Sang-hyun, a 23-year veteran navigator. “It compensates for the limitations of human vision.”

The Emerald sails the PS6 route, departing from Busan and calling at Qingdao and Shanghai in China before heading to Los Angeles and Oakland in the United States.

The round-trip distance is about 22,075 kilometers.

Completing a single voyage along the route - roughly equivalent to traveling halfway around the Earth - takes about 8 weeks.

Since installing the HiNAS system, the Emerald has completed around 44,000 kilometers of ocean voyages without incident.

Inside the bridge below the compass deck, three monitors displayed real-time data – replacing the old practice of plotting courses by pencil on paper charts. Information gathered from the camera units and various sensors shows nearby vessel positions, projected routes, fuel consumption, engine RPM, ocean currents, and weather conditions.

AI integrates weather, currents, and navigational data to calculate optimal routes and speeds. Navigators make operational decisions based on these recommendations, and when necessary, the system can automatically control steering and engine output.

Under standards set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), this corresponds to Level 2 autonomous navigation, in which the system performs control functions while crew members remain on board.

“At first it wasn’t easy to trust a machine’s judgment over the navigation experience built up over decades, but now there are many cases where data-driven navigation is more reliable than human judgment,” Park said. “Unlike humans, AI does not get fatigued and can maintain concentration 24 hours a day.”

According to demonstration results from Avikus, applying the HiNAS system reduces fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by about 5 percent.

For an ultra-large container ship with annual fuel costs of about 10 billion won ($6.84 million), that translates into savings of about 500 million won per year.

In January this year, HMM Co., Korea’s largest shipping company, signed a contract with Avikus to install HiNAS Control sequentially on 40 vessels in its fleet.

If applied to all 40 ships, the system is expected to reduce fuel costs by around 20 billion won annually.

Another strength is its collision-avoidance function, which steers away when another vessel approaches within a certain distance.

If a ship enters the preset range, an alarm sounds and the system calculates collision risk before suggesting an evasive route.

The HMM Busan Building in Jung District, Busan, houses the Fleet Control Center (FCC), a command hub that manages the company’s global fleet from land.

Large screens in the control center display thousands of operational data points in real time, including vessel locations, fuel usage, weather information, and engine conditions.

The control center has evolved beyond simple monitoring to become a key hub for preventing maritime accidents.

Compared to before its launch in 2020, the number of ship-related incidents has decreased by around 30 to 40 percent.

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