Main Project Results

PALAEMON brings together all stakeholders of the value chain; from the collection of user requirements, to the iterative development and validation of the system’s technical specifications & the performance of pilot demonstrations and integrity tests, the involved user groups – ship operators, citizens, first responders, crisis managers, resource/ infrastructure managers, and public agencies – will be integral cogs.

Objective 1: To develop a Mass Evacuation Vessel (MEV) which will be a) designed for existing and new ship buildings and b) for future ship designs, where the MEV will be a part of the superstructure and can be detached, in case of an accident or incident.

 

PALAEMON will examine the replacement of lifeboats, with detachable units (occupying the same space as a life-boat would) that will be used as leisure areas during normal operation. The idea is twofold a) The design, analysis and development of the MEV-I designed for existing ships and new ship buildings, which can accommodate almost 80% of the people on board due to the novel design which the MEV-I offers, b) The MEV-II which is a completely radical idea for future ship buildings (beyond 5 years) which envisages the MEVs as part of the superstructure and can accommodate more than 120% of the people. In the first case, the MEV-I will be pre-equipped with inflatable

flotation devices that can be activated almost instantly when the MEV hits the water, while in the latter case the MEV-II, when detached will be gathered by the mothership MEV-II and steered to safety. The MEV concepts will be developed for mass rescues operations in high passenger capacity ships, such as Ropax and Cruise ships.

Objective 2: To provide a smart digital on-board ecosystem by combining sophisticated ICT toolkits.

 

PALAEMON will follow an approach of effectively and intelligently fusing different sensor inputs and machine learning methods for enabling “smart” information capturing. This includes (i) the creation of accurate and representative data libraries that will ensure the development of machine learning methods using optimal input data; (ii) the development of appropriate algorithms supporting the interpretation of different sensor inputs (e.g. ship stability, fire, a vertical system integration of a sensor node and a toolkit of machine learning algorithms for predicting the number of persons located in a closed space etc.) and their correlation to weather forecasting algorithms; (iii) the deployment of data fusion techniques that will trigger active and/or on-demand learning as well as feed into adaptive algorithms for incidents, forming a “curiosity-driven” agent, allowing it to perform specialised data-gathering activities when an incident is identified iv) a smart passenger monitoring and evacuation system which automates and streamlines the process of evacuating large passenger ships.

Objective 3: Passenger-centric behavioural assessment.

 

PALAEMON will apply behavioural analysis to detect and assess the panic level from organisational processes (e.g. evacuation plan, recommendation engines, social media, etc.) to detect and assess the panic level and/ or individual passenger behaviour pattern of activities involved in detection and analysis of threat stimuli and the situations in which the threat is encountered with the aim to automatically implement appropriate incentives for behavioural change and awareness enhancement. Passengers behavioural patterns will be identified and communicated to PALAEMON evacuation management suite considering that risk assessment is also a feature of human defensive behaviour, particularly in association with ambiguity highly associated with anxiety situations. This tool will dress the psychological aspect of people on board, such as phobias, panic, stress caused by fear, etc.

Objective 4: DSS for optimising operational capacity and planning, featuring automatic rapid reconfiguration of inspection and evacuation processes.

 

PALAEMON will apply innovative methods and technologies as part of escalating volumes of information, and increasing complexity due to vessel size and volume of passengers for more resource-efficient and fast evacuation processes, by developing an integrated multi-level knowledge-based Decision Support System (DSS) that will guide the ship crew and SaR (Search and Rescue) at various stages of the process. This system will be able to understand the complex interplay of information, such as ship status, passenger positions, type of incidents, and meteorological data, with the various heterogeneous parameters that affect the evacuation procedure. As a result, the DSS will provide efficient evacuation planning scenarios, fast/ rapid reconfiguration of the evacuation plan, and resource optimisation (energy, manpower etc.).

Objective 5: Tailored Evacuation Services.

 

PALAEMON will provide tailored evacuation insights in line with each type of passenger ship needs. Tailored intelligent evacuation services are highly sensitive to the context and the requirements of

the IMO and the corresponding regulations and policies, and a service may not require the same level of adaptation in all cases of vessels. Various levels of adaptation are needed in such services, which are highly dependent on the nature of service and user’s needs/ requirements. PALAEMON aims to embed an innovative architecture to fulfil the following purposes: (a) evacuation in modern passenger ships through the smart use of a Massive Evacuation Vessel and (b) prioritise ICT technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) based on better planning and targeted intervention, using sensors (local and earth observation satellite) across different PALAEMON services.

Objective 6: To enable safe orientation in heterogeneous ship decks based on advanced AR technologies, indoor position technologies and hardware accelerated visual sensors.

 

The crew and the SaR iterative exploration routine inside the ship decks will include a “curiosity-driven” element, allowing it to stop and perform specialised data-gathering activities when an object or a passenger will be identified and trigger enhanced measurements, analysis and interpretation. PALAEMON will be able to operate in various deck conditions, at a data processing speed which makes it feasible to collect data with high precision and to provide targeted rescue and evacuation services over the entire area and the objects within it. The goal is to achieve zero casualties and no person left behind. Through the smart sensors all passengers will be accounted for and using AR the crew will be aided to swiftly reach hard to get places, where persons might be stranded or trapped and guide them to safe evacuation areas. Information on the ship’s condition will be transmitted in real time through the AR interface, reporting on flooded or damaged sections and aiding the crew in the

Objective 7: To implement mechanisms for automated mustering evacuation operation planning and task scheduling. evacuation procedure.

 

The PALAEMON ecosystem will be able to generate operation plans in real time. The execution of these plans will be linked with the PALAEMON DSS and will also consider effects of actions, unexpected events and any new information that can contribute to validation, refinement or reconsideration of the plan, like mapped future environmental states. Plans will be presented conditionally, so that supplementary knowledge from observations, databases, sensors, etc. can be incorporated to revise plans.

Objective 8: PALAEMON Evacuation System Simulator (PESS).

 

PALAEMON will create a complete simulation engine for building evacuation training systems and introduce new learning technology based on massive, multi-player gaming, where officers and passengers will be exposed to realistic 3D evacuation context, will role-play, communicate and interactively brought together in real-time, thus promoting richer interaction and assessment of teamwork. Furthermore, PALAEMON will introduce computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models for smoke and fire propagation to assist people in moving away and get to the muster stations, focusing on mustering and evacuating sensitive population groups (e.g. elder, disabled, kids, etc.).

Objective 9: PALAEMON Operational Centre & Academy.

 

To develop a user-involved approach and a technological foundation to better and securely facilitate knowledge intensive collaboration and extraction and an extensive network of authorized experts that may co-operate closely both domestically and at a European level, develop their capacities, generate new knowledge and contribute their expertise towards efficient passenger ship mustering and evacuation. To provide PALAEMON admitted members the highest degree of

scenario-based curricula and expose them to the full range of PALAEMON ecosystem functions, building trainees hands-on experience and promoting their self-confidence and autonom

Objective 10: Continuous validation and Proof of concept demonstrations.

 

To validate the proposed technology and business framework through pilot demonstrations in three different ships. The operational properties of the proposed ecosystem, and overall solution will be validated and evaluated against performance, effectiveness and usability indicators. Passenger ships participating in the project’s pilot tests will deploy and evaluate the solution at business as usual and emergency situations across various environmental scenarios. Use cases will be supported by different architectures, which will be classified according to the operation mode.

Objective 11: PALAEMON system commercialisation and exploitation.

 

To perform all required activities, e.g. formulate the appropriate business models and settle IPR procedures for pushing the outcome of this action (an integrated operational/information exchange Platform/Portal) as a commercial product/service/solution in the relevant maritime market. The goals are to improve overall ship real time inspection and evacuation performance in modern “digital” ship ecosystems and to create an intelligent and robust autonomous evacuation solution by offering a wide variety of tailored ship-based information services.