On November 8, during his keynote on ICMASS 2023, Rolph Hijdra will take you on his journey from initial developments in autonomous shipping to leveraging of the full potential in the (near) future. Autonomous and remote-controlled shipping have been developing at a steady pace over the last few years. According to Rolph, focus should be directed towards the optimization of shipping operations and corresponding ship designs to enable adoption once autonomous systems are fully available and accepted by society, the shipping industry and regulatory bodies.

Rolph Hijdra started his career in the maritime industry in 2002, first at major Dutch shipyards and since 2017 at C-Job Naval Architects. Rolph has a strong background in the field of structural design and analysis, but became research lead in the topic of Autonomous Shipping at C-Job.

In recent years, Rolph became the inventor of the ‘Autonomous Underwater Maintenance Dredger’, a cost-effective and sustainable dredging solution, and co-created the ‘Autonomous Guard vessel’ concept. He also advised the Dutch government on policy and legislation regarding sailing drones and currently fulfills the role of chairman in the Dutch workgroup USV’s.

C-Job Naval Architects is sponsor of ICMASS 2023