The Department of Nautical Science is one of the two departments established in 1993 offering Higher National Diploma in nautical science - in collaboration with Glasgow College of Nautical Science UK. From humble beginning catering to 13 students the department has today grown catering to about 620 BSc students plus about 150 Higher National Diploma Students in the span of last 20 years and offering various Pre-sea and Post Sea courses.

In the early 1990s Maritime Education in India was confined to Training Ship Chanakyaanda handful of smaller Institutes offering short-term modular courses, typically of less than 2-weeks duration. More importantly the South Indian sector was a neglected sector with no Maritime education Institutes whereas there were considerable number of aspirants into the Merchant Navy profession who had to necessarily go North or West to pursue their core education. AMET, especially the Department of Nautical Science was the first Institution in SOUTH INDIA which ventured into Long term courses.

In the year 2000 the DG Shipping under the Ministry of Shipping and surface transport recognized the need to encourage Private Sector participation in Maritime Education. AMET was the foremost and first PRIVATE Institution to board on this opportunity to commence a 3 year degree program in Nautical Science in collaboration first with Alagappa University and later with BITS Ranchi University.

During these years the Nautical Science Department not only grew in size by way of more students but also gained experience in higher education. AMET sought to become a truly de-novo University under the able aegis of UGC in the year 2007. This transition marked a distinct change in the approach to Maritime Education, primarily the nautical Science. As a dedicated Maritime University the Department of Nautical Science was able to ably meet the changing demands of the stake holding Industry on the one hand and more importantly to progressively raise the pure science aspects of Maritime core subjects to a higher level. This is borne out by the fact that ever since becoming a De-Novo University the Department has enhanced the syllabus standards more than 4 times in the last 5 years- balancing the areas of pure science and applied science suitably.