# Research and Development of Inland Green and Smart Ship Technologies in China
###### Abstract  
Nowadays, the development of green and smart ships has become a trend in the global shipping industry. Some countries such as Japan and Korea, as well as several European countries, have already made some progress and advantages. In recent years, China has issued a series of policies to encourage and support the development of green and smart ships. Beyond that, the demonstration of green and smart ships has been promoted along with the trend of larger-sized and standardized inland vessels. The Chinese status and plans of green technologies are summarized including air layer drag reduction, efficient propulsion, DC networking, and clean energy. Some smart technologies have also been illustrated, for instance, intelligent driving, intelligent engine rooms, energy efficiency, hulls, cargo control, and information integration. Smart ship technologies need to be fully validated in order to improve industrialization applications. In the shipping industry, the development and application of smart ship technology need international and inter-regional cooperation, so as to achieve much higher energy savings, ensure environmental protection, achieve collaborative intelligence, and ensure safety and reliability. In turn, this will aid economic advances worldwide.  
inland ship; green ship technology; smart ship technology 20242  
Japan has brought together more than 40 local companies in shipping, shipbuilding, and ship equipment manufacturing to jointly launch smart ship projects, including large ferries, container ships, passenger ships, and other ship types. By seizing this cooperative opportunity and using the capabilities of the whole country, the All Japan cooperation plan aims for half of ships to be autonomous by 2040 [5]. The South Korean government created the Smart Ship x.0 plan [6]. In April 2020, Hyundai Heavy Industries of South Korea installed a modern smart navigation assistance system on a 250,000 ton bulk carrier to autonomously identify surrounding ships and use augmented reality for collision avoidance warning.  
European countries are actively developing test smart ships. In December 2018, Rolls-Royce and Finferries put into operation the world's first smart ferry, Falco, as shown in Figure 1, which operates in the archipelago in the southern part of Turku, Finland. The ship has a certain autonomous navigation capability and can autonomously avoid collisions [7]. In May 2018, the 42 m-long carbon fiber all-electric catamaran \"Future of The Fjords\" began sailing, and is the first vessel of its kind to offer completely emissions-free transport through the Western Norwegian landscape [8]. In February 2020, the Kongsberg Group conducted adaptive transit on the ferry Basto Fosen VI, which has functions such as enhanced intelligent perception, autonomous docking and undocking, hazard warning, and route planning, and the equipment at the ship's ends can be fully operated automatically [9].  
China is also actively researching and developing smart ship technology. In December 2017, the world's first smart ship, Dazhi, as shown in Figure 2, was put into operation; it was independently developed by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation. Since then, this company has successively developed and built ships with smart navigation functions, such as the 400,000 ton super-large ore ship Mingyuan and the super-large oil tanker Kaizheng. Wuhan University of Technology has undertaken the inland waterway green and smart ship project to promote the green and smart development of inland ships.