IIT Madras builds SEANAV, a real-time digital twin to train and test autonomous ships before they reach open water
IIT Madras's Department of Ocean Engineering has built SEANAV, a Unity3D-based digital twin that simulates ships, sensors, waves and traffic so autonomous navigation systems can be tested and seafarers trained before going to sea. Next, the team plans digital twins of major Indian ports and validation with physical scale models.
Testing a self-driving car is hard. Testing a self-driving ship is harder: the vessel can be 300 metres long, takes kilometres to stop, and operates in waves, currents and traffic that cannot be safely staged on demand. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have built a tool to move much of that testing into a virtual environment first.
The platform, called SEANAV (Sea Navigation), was developed by IIT Madras's Department of Ocean Engineering and announced on 12 November 2026. It is a real-time digital twin for testing, validating and training autonomous maritime navigation systems. It reproduces ships, their sensors, ocean conditions and surrounding vessel traffic closely enough that navigation software can be put through realistic scenarios before it is trusted with a real hull.
The problem SEANAV is trying to solve
Autonomous and remotely operated ships are moving from research projects towards regulation. Globally, the International Maritime Organization has been working on a code for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS). Navies, including India's, are investing in uncrewed surface and underwater vessels. Commercial operators see autonomy as a way to cut collision risk, crew fatigue and fuel use.
The bottleneck is validation. According to IIT Madras's release, as reported by ThePrint, Marine Insight and ETV Bharat, SEANAV targets the high cost, complexity and safety risks of testing navigation systems in real-world conditions. Sea trials are expensive. Dangerous edge cases, such as a near-miss in a crowded channel, sudden weather, or a sensor failing in heavy swell, are exactly the situations nobody wants to create deliberately with a real tanker.
How the platform works
Based on the institute's description and press coverage:
- Game-engine foundation. SEANAV runs on the Unity3D engine and recreates realistic ocean waves, moving traffic and adverse weather.
- AI plus sensor fusion. It combines artificial intelligence with multi-sensor fusion, so navigation algorithms are fed simulated data like what radar, cameras and other shipboard sensors would produce at sea.
- Calibrated against a real ship class. The simulator is calibrated against a benchmark tanker of about 320 metres, so its results are meant to reflect the behaviour of large commercial vessels, not toy models.
- Many ships at once. Several autonomous vessels can navigate a congested waterway at the same time, which matters because collision avoidance depends on how each ship reacts to the others.
- A human in the loop. An immersive virtual-reality interface, reported to run on Meta Quest headsets, lets maritime professionals train inside the same simulated environment.
The research team says it has already demonstrated autonomous path-following and AI-driven collision avoidance in the platform under realistic sensing and wave conditions. The work was led by Suresh Rajendran, an associate professor in the Department of Ocean Engineering.
The institute links findings to a peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering (doi:10.1115/1.4070802). It describes multi-agent AI and simulated LiDAR, radar and stereo-camera inputs with noise and delays. The release does not provide comparative performance figures.
What comes next
The team has set out three next steps:
- Building digital twins of major Indian ports, so navigation systems can be tested against the real geometry and traffic patterns of the harbours they will use.
- Enabling certified VR-based pilot training, which would mean training regulators and port authorities accept the simulator as part of formal qualification.
- Validating with physical scale models, closing the loop between the virtual twin and real hydrodynamic behaviour.
Physical validation is where IIT Madras has unusual depth. Its Department of Ocean Engineering runs a towing tank and has added a planar motion mechanism for ship-manoeuvring studies. The institute also hosts the National Technology Centre for Ports, Waterways and Coasts (NTCPWC), which works as a technology arm of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and supports ports and the Inland Waterways Authority of India.
Why it matters for India
Coverage of SEANAV links the project to the Sagarmala Programme and Maritime India Vision 2030, the government's plans to modernise ports, expand coastal and inland shipping and build domestic maritime capability. A simulation and training platform fits that agenda in three ways.
Port safety and efficiency. Indian ports are handling more traffic, and many approach channels are narrow and busy. Digital twins of specific ports could let pilots and automated systems rehearse difficult manoeuvres without risk.
Indigenous autonomy stack. India's navy and coast guard are inducting more uncrewed and optionally crewed platforms, and Indian start-ups are building autonomous surface vessels. A domestic validation environment reduces dependence on foreign simulation tools for safety-critical software.
Maritime skills. India is one of the world's largest suppliers of seafarers. If VR-based training on a platform like SEANAV wins certification, it could become a lower-cost way to train officers and pilots for vessels that are increasingly software-driven.
The caveats
SEANAV is, for now, a research platform announced through an institutional release. The real test will be whether it can match real-world behaviour closely enough for regulators, classification societies and ship operators to rely on it. That depends on the scale-model validation the team has planned and on independent assessment of its published findings. Simulators are only as good as their calibration, and the gap between a well-modelled tanker in calm water and a laden vessel in a monsoon swell is where many autonomy programmes struggle.
Still, the direction is right. Simulation is likely to play a role in validating autonomy at sea, and building that capability in India, around Indian ports and traffic, is the kind of groundwork that decides who sets the standards later.
Sources
- https://theprint.in/india/iit-madras-develops-real-time-digital-twin-platform-for-autonomous-maritime-navigation/3096678/
- https://www.marineinsight.com/iit-madras-builds-seanav-digital-twin-to-train-autonomous-ships/
- https://www.etvbharat.com/en/technology/iit-madras-develops-digital-platform-to-test-autonomous-ships-train-maritime-professionals-prevent-collisions-enn26111206552
- https://www.uniindia.com/south-india/sea-navigation-tn-iit-madras/242750
- https://idrw.org/iit-madras-advances-autonomous-shipping-with-new-seanav-platform/
- https://www.thehawk.in/news/india/iit-madras-develops-seanav-a-real-time-digital-twin-platform-for-safer-autonomous-maritime-navigation
- https://defence.in/threads/iit-madras-develops-seanav-virtual-simulation-platform-for-training-and-testing-autonomous-maritime-navigation-systems.19098/
- https://ntcpwc.iitm.ac.in/New/controllability_of_ships_in_harbour_and_navigational_channels_08.php
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.14932
- https://www.iitm.ac.in/ta/node/18154