What is an autonomous ship?

We understand the autonomous ship as a system (see Figure 1) which consists of three essential specific components: the autonomous bridge, the autonomousengine room, and the shore control center.The autonomous bridge is a compilation of various technologies that enable the ship to independently capture a nautical picture of the situation it faces and, based on this, to navigate in accordance with COLREG (the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea), e.g. to make and implement course and voyage decisions independently.