applied sciences Article Regulatory Requirements on the Competence of Remote Operator in Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship: Situation Awareness, Ship Sense and Goal-Based Gap Analysis Masanori Yoshida 1,* , Etsuro Shimizu 1, Masashi Sugomori 2 and Ayako Umeda 1 1 Department of Marine Electronics and Mechanical Engineering, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, 2-1-6, Etchujima, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-8533, Japan;
[email protected] (E.S.);
[email protected] (A.U.) 2 The Maritime Human Resource Institute, Japan, 4-5, Koji-machi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0083, Japan;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 1 November 2020; Accepted: 3 December 2020; Published: 7 December 2020 Abstract: Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship (MASS) has been developed recently, and demonstration projects have been carried out internationally. Considering the full autonomous level is unlikely to be addressed shortly, remote control centre and Remote Operator (RO) will play a vital role in the MASS system. Although competence of watchkeeping at the ship’s bridge is inevitable for RO to avoid ship accidents caused by human errors, international requirements have not been introduced yet. This paper presents a way to develop the regulatory framework on the competence of RO based on the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) by exploring the concept of Situation Awareness (SA). Goal-Based Gap Analysis (GBGA) is constructed based on the human-behaviour model and the required information for SA. A case study through the mini focus group discussion with interviews by a total of three (3) veteran instructors of training ships is conducted utilising the information including the results of previous demonstration projects on the remote control.