Maritime safety has never been more vital; with millions of vessels navigating the globe daily, ensuring seamless and efficient communication among these vessels remains crucial for safety, operational efficiency, and fleet management. With so many vessels communicating worldwide, mermAId, an innovative AI electronic product, was created and designed to improve inter-vessel communication. We were excited to speak with Dean Mancini, CEO and Chairman of Mermaid AI, Inc., the company behind mermAId, to see how this advanced AI product has already been making waves globally by enhancing safety and communication in the maritime sector.
Check out the article in the magazine below:
MermAId originated within the US Navy, where the technology was developed following a research and development project aimed at enabling unmanned ships to autonomously communicate with manned ships over VHF radio. This program, the US Navy Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) program, led to the development of mermAId, a sophisticated AI technology that scans all marine VHF channels simultaneously and transcribes all messages into text displayed in real time. These messages can be translated from 54 languages into English using advanced AI technology, ensuring users understand what is being communicated over the airwaves and allowing actions to be programmed based on this information.
When I spoke to Dean Mancini, CEO and Chairman of Mermaid AI, Inc., I asked him what role mermAId played in everyday maritime operations. Mancini outlined that ‘mermAId provides enhanced situational awareness to all aspects of maritime operations. In the commercial industry, fleet managers and dispatchers can remotely monitor all communications of their vessels from land via any computer or the mermAId app on their mobile phone. They can even be alerted on their phone if one of the vessels issues a distress call.” Mancini continued, “Port and vessel traffic services and emergency personnel can have a better understanding of what is happening in their harbour by aggregating the radio traffic across all channels and can program automated alerts customised to their area of interest. If there is ever an incident, a date/time stamped log of that radio traffic, both in audio and text formats, are available to authorities and insurance companies in a searchable database online”.
Mancini’s comments here highlight just how valuable mermAId is across so many aspects of ports and harbours to enhance awareness of vessel activity, and to allow for a quick response should an emergency occur. In the event of an emergency, mermAId is an essential tool because the technology can be used to automatically alert authorities of a dangerous situation. Giving an example, Mancini outlines that “in the event of a disabled vessel that is on a collision course with a bridge, mermAId can be programmed to send a text message to port authorities and police to close the bridge”. This ability to proactively respond to emergencies ensures an extra layer of safety across the maritime landscape, supported by this innovative AI product.
With so much great technology behind it, mermAId today is being utilised by the US Navy to support harbour surveillance operations. The technology stands head and shoulders above its rivals as the first of its kind, as a vital patented technology, which has proven its success with an institution such as the US Navy. In addition to the US Navy, the Port of Baltimore has been one of the most recent ports to adopt mermAId to improve safety across its harbour by rapidly disseminating critical information. The adoption of mermAId came following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March 2024, when a container ship struck one of the bridge’s piers. In an effort to increase safety across the Port of Baltimore, it has adopted mermAId technology to allow it to help monitor vessels across the port and prevent such events from occurring in the future. Since it adopted mermAId, the Port of Baltimore has benefitted from enhanced port management and visibility, whilst maintaining reliable communication with all vessels travelling through Baltimore’s waters.
The company behind mermAId is Mermaid AI, Inc., with the technology having been developed by TDI Innovations Inc., part of a family of operations. TDI Technologies, and its affiliate company, TDI Novus, Inc., have been leaders in the engineering, research and design sector for the Department of Defence for over 35 years, with a central part of its research and development being focused on AI. With the increase of AI across the maritime sector, mermAId benefits from TDI’s expertise in this field to deliver greater awareness, faster and automated actions, which support increased efficiency and improved safety, whilst reducing costs in the process.
As Mermaid AI, Inc., and its mermAId technology look towards the future, I asked Mancini what the goals of mermAId technology over the coming years were. Mancini outlined that the central goals of mermAId are to transform VHF communications into a more powerful, actionable, and automated tool to improve safety and awareness in the maritime community. As the company moves towards this goal, mermAId technology has continued to be piloted with several of the largest tug companies in the inland waterways sector to monitor their vessel operations and assist with dispatch operations. Mancini outlined that the company is “developing a version 2.0 of our software which will include a map view to show vessels which are associated with radio transmissions, as well as a new mobile app to allow for remote monitoring and notification anywhere in the world”.
With this development, Mancini hopes to see mermAID being utilised across ships and harbours worldwide. For Mancini, “There is a multitude of communication being used out there and the technology in mermAId will allow us to unlock and fully utilise all that information. I believe it will ultimately save lives and being a part of that is hugely fulfilling to me on a personal level”. Mancini’s comments here highlight that mermAId is not just technology to enhance fleet communication, but in the long term, it is a vital tool that will improve safety and save lives in the future.
With safety being such a crucial aspect of maritime operations, the development of AI-powered technology such as mermAId that can improve awareness, communication, and emergency alerting will help to shape the future of ports and harbours worldwide. We look forward to catching up with Dean Mancini again soon to see how more stakeholders in the maritime sector continue to adopt the company’s mermAId technology to improve communication and safety in their ports and harbours.
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