The IRS has awarded the certification to Accurate Industrial Controls for its Intelligent Situational Awareness and Collision Avoidance (ISACA) tech stack following sea trials on board a new 13 m workboat, built for Accurate at SHM Shipyard Limited in Mumbai. The sea trials took place in the Arabian Sea off Karwar, India.
Dharmesh Popatlal Gala, Accurate’s Director of AI and Robotics, confirmed the ISACA system includes multiple situational awareness sensors including radar, GNSS, echo sounder, CCTV, and a full collision avoidance stack. He said it achieved IRS AUTN 4-R(N) certification in line with the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs) rules.
Dharmesh said following the successful trials, Accurate is now receiving orders and interest for both new-build and retrofit versions of the ISACA-equipped boat for commercial and naval markets.
“This is an exciting moment for Accurate,” he said. “We have worked for more than 30 years in automation across the steel, auto and aerospace industries. We saw an opportunity to expand into marine around five years ago when we were working with the Indian army. We now see massive growth potential for our collision avoidance software and autonomous navigation solutions to be supplied at scale into Europe, the Middle East, India and beyond. We are seeing queries from navies and coastguards as well as port, harbors and the offshore market.”
Dharmesh said key to Accurate’s offering is to draw on the expertise of a 1,500-strong workforce.
“As India is showing in space with the orbiter sent to Mars, India can innovate tech at a fraction the cost of other countries,” he said. “For that reason, we believe we have one of the most advanced and competitive autonomous navigation solutions available in the world. With the ISACA system we are aiming to democratize the cost of autonomous navigation solutions without compromising safety or performance.”
Dharmesh said bringing affordable autonomy to the market releases massive pressure on traditional patrol boats, which require continuous crewing and cannot maintain persistent awareness across large areas.
“Autonomous boats using the ISACA solutions can replace crews and provide 24/7 monitoring and persistent awareness at a fraction of the operational cost,” he said. “This matters more than ever in the naval arena where threats are changing and the nature of warfare evolving.”
Dharmesh added that Accurate has further built a smaller 5 m autonomous SAR Craft at the Sumit Shipyard, Kochi, which it is also bringing to the patrol boat market with the full ISACA tech stack.
