An Autonomous Sailboat Successfully Crosses Atlantic Ocean (digitaltrends.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: The first unmanned and autonomous sailboat has successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean, completing the journey between Newfoundland, Canada, and Ireland. The 1,800 mile journey took two and a half months. It was part of the Microtransat Challenge for robotic boats, and bolsters the possibility of unmanned boats being used for long-haul missions. This could include everything from ocean research to surveillance. "This has never been done before," David Peddie, CEO of Norwegian-based Offshore Sensing AS, which built the vessel, told Digital Trends. "The Sailbuoy [robotic boat] crossed this distance all by itself without incident. The significance of this is that it proves that one can use unmanned surface vehicles to explore the oceans for extended periods and distance. This greatly reduces the cost of exploring the oceans, and therefore enables a much more detailed knowledge of the oceans than is possible using conventional manned technology."

According to Peddie, the journey was surprisingly uneventful when it came to dealing with major challenges. That's a significant departure from the 20 previous unsuccessful efforts made by teams trying to complete the challenge since it started in 2010. "We had to wait a while for the right wind conditions to deploy safely; otherwise, the crossing has been normal with not too much wind and waves," he said. "We had to avoid some oil platforms, but this is not unusual since we test in the North Sea." He also noted that an effort was made to stay away from other ships, since there was a risk that the boat may have been picked up by passing traffic. Sailbuoy ships cost $175,000 each and are powered by on-board solar panels. They send constant GPS data to reveal exactly where they are located.

Comments

Not impressed

[PopeRatzo]

It's not like an autonomous sailboat has to worry about traffic or pedestrians. Let's see if it can safely dock in a busy Ft Lauderdale marina.

Re:Not impressed

[RandomFactor]

Or salvage...if it is unmanned, isn't it fair game for anyone to claim?

Re:Not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously...you're not a golfer.

As an IT professional, amateur roboticist, and sailor living aboard for some time, I'm impressed. Mooring in a busy port is a completely different set of skills. I've thought about ways to automate this and that, even the whole thing driving itself, and it's not easy. It's certainly not cheap. Not saying I have $175k to throw at a prototype that I'm going to send off across the Atlantic without me being onboard because I'm that hardcore a scientist, but I'm cognizant of how insanely cheap that is for an object capable of doing that. Sailing across the Atlantic, particularly the North Atlantic, is neither easy nor trivial, even ignoring the human aspects of the difficulty like how computers don't care about getting the necessary amount of protein, coffee, and cigarettes that i would require. Not so bad in summer as in winter, but still, it takes a special dedication bordering on insanity that I don't have to do a North Atlantic crossing. As someone who appreciates the art and achievement, I'm very much impressed and I think it's telling that it took humanity until 2018 to achieve it.

Tell you what. You pick out a (combustion) powered boat of comparable size and displacement (say, 50-200%), and achieve the same thing for the same cost, and I'll even give you the fuel for free. I will be almost as impressed.

Hard to believe...

[Man On Pink Corner]

.... that the drug cartels haven't been doing this for years now. It can't possibly be that hard, especially with the amount of funding they can bring to bear.

Is this a different boat...

[WoodstockJeff]

... than this? https://hardware.slashdot.org/...