Based on the wave statistical data of the specific water area in the South China Sea, this paper considers the particularity of the navigation conditions and studies the wave loads included in the hull girder strength assessment of ships navigating in this area. With the requirements of the steel sea ship classification specification of the China Classification Society and the wave statistical data of the North Atlantic as the foundation, by comparing with the wave load calculation results of five typical ship models, the wave load reduction level for ships navigating in the specific water area of the South China Sea is given. This study provides certain reference significance for ship structure design and overall strength evaluation of ships navigating in specific water areas in the South China Sea.

Since the 21st century, human exploration of marine resources deepens, the increasingly sophisticated manipulation tasks in unstructured underwater environment put forward higher requirements and challenges for submersibles' operational capability. Interacting with the surroundings with robotic arm is a very important manifestation of such capability. However, autonomous underwater manipulation at this stage is yet in its infancy and various underwater intervention missions still rely highly on manual control, which is very likely to lead to inefficiency in continuous operation. Hence, improving the autonomy in underwater vehicle’s manipulation ability is an inevitable trend of marine equipment in the future. Overviews and existing problems of underwater manipulation are introduced in detail in this paper, and the enormous potential of autonomous underwater manipulation in ocean engineering and other fields is illustrated by comparing the limitations of traditional remotely controlled approaches. The current status of autonomous underwater manipulation is systematically reviewed and main limiting factors and challenges that constrain the development of this domain are analyzed, and the key technologies need to be developed towards industry application are pointed out. Finally, prospects for further development of this area in the future are made.

With the arrival of the intelligent era, the world shipbuilding industry and shipping industry are gradually focusing on intelligent ships, and the research of intelligent ship system has become one of the hot issues. This paper introduces the intelligent ship and the intelligent ship system, reviews the state-of-the-art and the development characteristics of the intelligent ship system both home and abroad, and prospects the development trend of the ship intelligent system. It is proposed to accelerate the research and development of the critical technologies and key system equipment through the guidance of national key projects for intelligent ships, orderly promoting the development of the intelligent ship system for various ship types.