Aware Mate FAQ

Aware Mate is an on-board, human-in-the-loop vigilance and watchkeeping support system designed to help the officer of the watch stay alert, engaged, and operationally effective before risk escalates into a safety event. It complements existing bridge safeguards rather than replacing them.

No. Aware Mate is built more broadly for vigilance and watchkeeping support. It helps identify sustained patterns consistent with reduced alertness, distraction, or other attention drift, and can also generate privacy-bounded operational signals for review over time.

No. Aware Mate complements BNWAS and other bridge safeguards with earlier on-board vigilance support, and can work alongside existing alerting where permitted.

No. Aware Mate is advisory only and is not designed to automate navigational decision-making. Responsibility remains with the officer of the watch and the vessel’s command team.

No. It is not designed to produce automated fitness-for-duty decisions or to trigger automated disciplinary or HR actions.

No. Aware Mate is not designed around posture policing. Sitting, standing, or acknowledging an alarm are all weak proxies for actual cognitive engagement; the system is built to support vigilance and watchkeeping performance.

Aware Mate is not intended as another blunt bridge alarm source. It is designed primarily for quieter, lower-stimulus periods of watchkeeping where alertness or engagement can gradually drift, not for piling on alarms when the bridge is already saturated. The operating model is built around earlier, proportionate intervention, and pilot structure can include a silent calibration phase in which lower alert tiers are evaluated without audible nudges while only higher-severity states remain active for safety.

Aware Mate is commissioned and tuned for the vessel’s actual bridge environment, including layout, lighting, and watch patterns. Pilot deployments can include an initial silent calibration phase before full operation, and crew feedback is part of tuning and usability improvement. In the December 2025 operational bridge trial, the measured false Critical alert rate was 0.08 per hour in the tested conditions. These results are useful operational evidence, not a blanket promise for every bridge environment.

Aware Mate is advisory only, so standard bridge responsibility remains with the officer of the watch and command team. Human oversight is built in, and the bridge team can override, mute, or disable alerts. Where optional BNWAS integration is used, fail-safe behaviour is intended not to interfere with standard BNWAS operation.

By default, processing happens on board on the vessel edge unit. The system is designed around derived vigilance-related signals and technical logs rather than cloud processing for its core function.

No. The system is designed without identity recognition and without emotion recognition.

Not by default. Standard off-vessel outputs are structured around derived safety signals, anonymised event metadata, and aggregated reporting rather than continuous raw video.

By default, retention is minimised. If enabled under operator policy, a short encrypted on-device buffer may be kept for Critical alerts solely for post-incident review.

Yes. Aware Mate is designed to operate on board without internet dependency for its core function.

Yes. Human oversight is built in, and mute, disable, and override procedures are part of the operating concept and SOP framework.

Deployment usually includes bridge survey, camera placement, local network and device setup, commissioning, threshold tuning, crew familiarisation, and policy-aligned operation.

Typical pilot deployment is designed as a retrofit installation with minimal disruption. Current pilot documentation assumes installation and initial commissioning on board, typically within one day, followed by tuning and familiarisation.

A typical installation includes a camera, edge unit, local network or switch, and power. Optional components can include local speaker or buzzer output and optional BNWAS dry-contact integration where agreed. Final configuration depends on the bridge setup and pilot scope.

A pilot is usually scoped around a limited number of vessels or bridges, a defined evaluation window, practical success criteria, and minimal disruption to routine operations. A typical structure includes installation, commissioning, an initial silent calibration phase, active operation, and close-out review.

Depending on the agreed setup, Aware Mate can provide privacy-bounded operational insight such as alert trends, watch occupancy context, unattended or long-absence patterns, comparative review views, and, where enabled, traffic-adjusted risk context.

In a typical deployment, the vessel owner or operator acts as controller and is responsible for lawful basis, crew information or notice, and onboard SOP. ELNAV.AI supports this through deployment documentation, data-handling materials, and the DPA framework.