Maritime Autonomous Surface Shipping from a Machine-Type Communication Perspective

Maritime autonomous surface shipping (MASS) involves a broad range of technical issues, from sensor technologies to ship autonomy, maritime safety regulations to risk management, and information networks to international spectrum allocations. This article identifies and examines the crucial components of MASS and addresses the challenges from a machine-type communication (MTC) perspective. It establishes a service-based MASS framework with added structural components and functional elements on top of the comprehensive service-centric MTC network architecture as the ultimate solution to the great MASS challenges.