London-based autonomous maritime navigation company Orca AI has unveiled a groundbreaking software feature named Co-Captain, aimed at reducing incidents at sea. Yarden Gross and Dor Raviv started Orca AI in 2018. To date, the company has taken great leaps in maritime technology, launching their first products, SeaPod and Fleet View. Co-Captain is the newest innovation, developed with the purpose of increasing maritime safety for vessels around the world.
Co-Captain acts as a robust network of vessels using Orca’s technology to record real-time occurrences and share that data to provide impactful knowledge. The platform is an experiment to combine data from multiple onboard sensors. It then transmits this data to the cloud assisting ship operators in optimizing performance and proactively addressing safety implementations. Today, Co-Captain is being used on more than 1,200 vessels globally.
Yarden Gross, CEO and co-founder of Orca AI, told us how the system works. “Every ship acts as a node in a larger network, and each node—the vessel itself—has an onboard AI platform,” he stated. This interconnected approach enables Co-Captain to anticipate how current conditions may affect nearby ships, taking into account factors such as size and design.
The information that we capture through Co-Captain is integral to delivering the most relevant alerts and updates—all in one place—to keep you informed. This, in turn, enables ship officers to rapidly red flag areas of potential danger. It automates their process, which has traditionally been a very hands-on process. By anonymizing the data from vessels, Co-Captain can share important safety alerts like GPS interference, hazardous weather, and heavy traffic. This strategy guarantees that the reporting vessels’ identities are kept hidden.
Civil actions aside, Co-Captain anonymizes this data all to protect user privacy. This enables them to communicate important safety warnings like GPS jamming, storm/poor weather conditions or heavy traffic without disclosing the name or position of the reporting ship, Gross noted. This cutting-edge approach creates another layer of safety and it encourages communication and collaboration with other vessels traveling in the same waters.
Orca AI’s priority now is to integrate Co-Captain with more bridge systems. This encompasses essential technologies as Navigational Telex (NAVTEX) and Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS). Through these integrations, the platform’s already powerful capabilities will be enhanced even more, helping to better ensure the safety of all maritime operations.
Gross compared how users can navigate within Co-Captain to using a popular navigation app that many people use in their personal cars today. Co-Captain is a collaborative armada of vessels equipped with Orca to document events around the world and exchange intel. Think of it like the navigation app you use in your car: it tells you about traffic or roadblocks in advance so you can adjust your route,” he explained.
With the launch of Co-Captain, we’ve taken another big step toward safer maritime technology. Orca AI is leading the transformation of ship operations in crowded waterways. They do this by tapping into real-time data and creating connectivity and collaborative competition among vessels. The company’s commitment to using cutting-edge technology to enhance maritime navigation represents a long-term dedication to improving safety standards across the industry.