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.

Comments

boats and planes

[Anonymous Coward]

Boat and plane navigation is reasonably similar - it's 'head to waypoint', not 'navigate through twisty curves'.

Pointless statistics are pointless

[aardvarkjoe]

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.

Notice how none of these statistics address, at all, how much money there is in automating ships? Besides the hand-waving, the article doesn't address it at all.

I mean, I'm sure that there's some, but just because most cargo goes by sea doesn't necessarily mean anything in relation to whether automating ships can save any money or increase revenue.

Re:Pointless statistics are pointless

[quantaman]

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.

Notice how none of these statistics address, at all, how much money there is in automating ships? Besides the hand-waving, the article doesn't address it at all.

I mean, I'm sure that there's some, but just because most cargo goes by sea doesn't necessarily mean anything in relation to whether automating ships can save any money or increase revenue.

I agree entirely.

These ships already require crews of dozens and carry cargo worth tens? hundreds of millions? The world's 2nd largest shipping company has 471 vessels, assume 1200 of its 24000 employees are pilots.

Assume you manage to make it so unbelievably good that you eliminate every pilot, at ~$200k each you're saving ~$250 million a year for a company with revenue of $28 billion. Is a best-case 1% cost savings really revolutionary? And remember volume increases with the cube while area the square, meaning that bigger ships are more efficient in every way possible and they'll continue to grow in size. The cost of pilot wage relative to cargo will only continue to drop.

The article mentions that an auto-pilot may be able to drive the ship more efficiently, if so I think there's massive revenue potential, but merely eliminating the position of pilot seems inconsequential.

More likely I'd expect a plane-like auto-pilot driving 95% of the time while the virtually free pilots are there on standby. Most likely they have that already and the article is hyping based on bad assumptions.

A lot of 'autonomous X' will appear earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

The environment is simply more forgiving and more constrained for boats, planes, space probes, mining equipment, farming equipment, tunnel service robots, and non-personal autonomous systems (aka pizza delivery bots on sidewalks). They all will appear on the market before a consumer-grade L5 car will be available to fleet operators on a large scale, meaning servicing everything from northern Alaska to southern Patagonia during any season in any city.

Everybody, including Google, has only demonstration systems that operate under very specific constrained environments. They are impressive (especially Google's system), push innovation (e.g., autopilot and supercruise), and are fun to think about, but nowhere near that they could start manufacturing them with a profit to be sold to fleet operators at Level 5.

Simple enough

[Archfeld]

These kinds of ships spend almost their entire voyage on "auto pilot" now, and they require a local pilot and tug to navigate into harbor. With the lack of personnel I'd bet insurance rates go down in case of piracy, the need for food and crew space goes away and can be used for more cargo. The ships will still be met and guided into any harbor by the same system we use now.