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Rolls-Royce Eyes Autonomous Ships, Expects Remote-Controlled Cargo Ships By 2020 (pcmag.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via PC Magazine: Speaking at a recent symposium in Amsterdam, Rolls-Royce vice president of innovation for marine, Oskar Levander, said, "The technologies needed to make remote and autonomous ships a reality exist." In partnership with the Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications Initiative (AAWA) project, Rolls-Royce, DNV GL, Inmarsat, Deltamarin, NAPA, Brighthouse Intelligence, Finferries, and ESL Shipping are leading the $7 million effort. Unmanned ships could save money, weight, and space, making way for more cargo and improving reliability and productivity, the AAWA said in a recent white paper. "The increased level of safety onboard will be provided by additional systems," Rolls-Royce said on its website. "Our future solutions will reduce need for human-machine interaction by automating selected tasks and processes, whilst keeping the human at the center of critical decision making and onboard expertise." Initial testing of sensor arrays in a range of operating and climatic conditions is already underway in Finland. Phase II of the project will continue through the end of 2017. Rolls-Royce plans to launch the first remote-controlled cargo ships by 2020, with autonomous boats in the water within the next two decades. Rolls-Royce was in the news last week when they unveiled their first driverless vehicle called The Vision Next 100.
Unmanned ships could save money, weight, and space...
Seriously? The crew and crew quarters take up a significant fraction of the operating budget, weight and volume of a modern cargo ship? I'm not buying it.
Take a look at some of these ships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship
This is a bit like setting booby traps in your home to nail burglars:
Two big differences: booby traps often get unintended targets. the drones or gas here would happen only after a human verifies they are real pirates on board, and not just stowaways. Secondly, the law for piracy on the high seas has always been very different to burglary. You don't hang burglars. But lethal force against pirates is fine by me. Its not like you can sent the village constable around to question them.