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Autonomous Boats Will Be On the Market Sooner Than Self-Driving Cars (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In the autonomous revolution that is underway, nearly every transportation machine will eventually be self-driving. For cars, it's likely going to take decades before we see them operating freely, outside of test conditions. Some unmanned watercraft, on the other hand, may be at sea commercially before 2020. That's partly because automating all ships could generate a ridiculous amount of revenue. According to the United Nations, 90 percent of the world's trade is carried by sea and 10.3 billion tons of products were shipped in 2016. According to NOAA's National Ocean Service, ships transported $1.5 trillion worth of cargo through U.S. ports in 2016. The world's 325 or so deep-sea shipping companies have a combined revenue of $10 billion.
Startups and major firms like Rolls Royce are now looking to automate the seas and help maritime companies ease navigation, save fuel, improve safety, increase tonnage, and make more money. As it turns out, autonomous systems for boats aren't supremely different than those of cars, beyond a few key factors -- for instance, water is always moving while roads are not, and ships need at least a couple miles to redirect. Buffalo Automation, a startup in upstate New York that began at the University at Buffalo, just raised $900,000 to help commercialize its AutoMate system -- essentially a collection of sensors and cameras to help boats operate semi-autonomously. CEO Thiru Vikram said the company is working with three pilot partners, and intends to target cargo ships and recreational vessels first. Autonomous ships are an area of particular interest for the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which sets the standards for international waters. It launched a regulatory scoping exercise last year to analyze the impact of autonomous boats. By the time it wraps in 2020, market demand may make it so that we already have semi-autonomous and unmanned vessels at sea.
Startups and major firms like Rolls Royce are now looking to automate the seas and help maritime companies ease navigation, save fuel, improve safety, increase tonnage, and make more money. As it turns out, autonomous systems for boats aren't supremely different than those of cars, beyond a few key factors -- for instance, water is always moving while roads are not, and ships need at least a couple miles to redirect. Buffalo Automation, a startup in upstate New York that began at the University at Buffalo, just raised $900,000 to help commercialize its AutoMate system -- essentially a collection of sensors and cameras to help boats operate semi-autonomously. CEO Thiru Vikram said the company is working with three pilot partners, and intends to target cargo ships and recreational vessels first. Autonomous ships are an area of particular interest for the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which sets the standards for international waters. It launched a regulatory scoping exercise last year to analyze the impact of autonomous boats. By the time it wraps in 2020, market demand may make it so that we already have semi-autonomous and unmanned vessels at sea.
A big container ship will have a crew of about 25. Of these, only 3 or 4 are directly involved in steering the ship: The captain, and a couple of deck officers, all of whom have other duties as well. And, as you said, they aren't paid much. So I don't see how this could possibly generate "ridiculous amounts of revenue" as claimed by TFA.
Level 4 vehicles (fully self-driving, no human attendant, but geofenced to a specific area) are already here, working in real life, and have been all year. Hundreds of these are already ferrying the public around Phoenix, and they now have a licence for full commercial operation.
Expect to see thousands more real self-driving robotaxis in service in the 25 cities they're being tested in today.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Are these not being reported? Because global ship losses seem a lot less than one every other day
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I'll add that most of the rest of the crew are there to fix stuff when it breaks while at sea. If costs could be lowered by reducing the number of crew and adding redundancy and shortening maintenance schedules so there's nearly zero chance of any critical systems failing during a 1 month trans-oceanic voyage, shipping lines would've done it already.
Ship crews are what they are because it's turned out to be cheaper to have ships staffed 24/7 by crew who can repair the exact item which breaks in-transit. This may not be obvious if you think of this from the standpoint of home or auto repair, where the cost of parts range from a few hours to a few days worth of labor. But on something as large as a ship, a part might cost several decades worth of a mariner's salary. And it ends up being cheaper to have someone aboard who can fix things, than to design all the systems to be redundant (add expensive backups) or swap out expensive working parts during maintenance because you're afraid they might fail during the next month-long voyage.