From Aviation to Maritime: An Approach to Define Target Safety Levels for the Safety Assurance of Autonomous Ship Systems

The safety assurance of autonomous ship systems is anticipated to present various challenges in the near future, necessitating the establishment of unambiguous procedures and references to facilitate the risk-based design of future ship systems. The International Maritime Organization's (IMO) guidelines, as outlined in the current version of the Formal Safety Assessment (FSA), Goal-Based Standards, and the rules from classification societies lack in detail for the risk-based design of autonomous ship systems. In the meantime, the aviation industry's regulations include more structured techniques for aircraft systems engineering, including a risk matrix that is employed as a benchmark to set the system safety objectives throughout various stages of system design. Consequently, this research suggests a methodology to establish target safety levels for the safety assurance of future ship systems, guided by aviation standards, to support the development of risk-based procedures and regulations that ensure the design of safe autonomous ship systems.