Daewoo Shipbuilding, GE Power Conversion to develop smart ship tech

South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) on Tuesday said it signed a memorandum of understanding with the global energy company GE Power Conversion to jointly develop DSME's Smartship Digital Solutions (DS4).

Both sides decided to develop a system to assess and maintain the condition of equipment on vessels in operation by using the digital technology electrical signature analysis (ESA).

DSME said use of ESA, a spectral analysis technique, allows assessment of the characteristics of power signals to monitor the condition of ship equipment and materials, detect abnormalities early and even diagnose them.

Upon completion, the system can detect problems in major vessel equipment, improve predictive and regular maintenance, raise the efficiency of inventory management, secure operational stability and reduce vessel operating costs.

By next year, DSME plans to complete joint development of the system and install it on the vessels it builds.

Write to Jae-Fu Kim at hu@hankyung.com