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

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.

They should go slow on this.

[hey!]

Maybe start with a pilot program.

Re: Why all these 'driverless' vehicles?

[Anonymous Coward]

To use a car analogy, it's like a car that drives without needing a driver.

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.

Re:Helps eliminate maritime workers.

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Ain't gonna happen

[MatthewWalker]

I spent 20 years going to sea. All during that time, the companies were trying to cut back on the crew. And, they pretty much have done it. The only people on board now are a skeleton crew to keep the ship moving. But, they can't cut down any more.

The problem is not that the technology is bad. The problem is that going to sea is much more complicated than non-seagoing people think. And, the sea is terribly unforgiving of any mistakes, incapacity or inattentiveness. We have gyrocompasses but we do check them against the magnetic compass. We have wonderful tracking radars with gyro stabilized displays. But, we still have lookouts for the things that radars do not pick up (like small boats). Satellite navigation provides us with accurate fixes, 24 hours a day. But, I still brought my sextant, and was expected to use it.

The engine room has a similar situation. Having engineers to maintain and repair the equipment is imperative. There are no repair crews when you are in the middle of the ocean.

A completely automated ship is even less likely than an automated airliner without a pilot.

...and be careful

[Roger W Moore]

They need to add lots of DRM to protect themselves from pirates.

Re:Helps eliminate maritime workers.

[Solandri]

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.