Rolls Royce Believes Autonomous Cargo Ships Will Work By The End of The Decade

Rolls Royce Motors came up with an autonomous luxury car concept just last week and now, the marine engines UK company has a vision for autonomous cargo ships and the belief they will hit waters at the end of the decade #automagic

Rolls Royce PLC released a white paper about the subject, detailing the way in which ships will work in the future . Cargo ships will go with the flow, letting go of the human crew in the favor of an adjustable autonomy.  That means that while no people are going to be, effectively, on board, ships will be controlled from a shore center.

What will be the benefits fo a semi-autonomy? Well, ship design would be more flexible, manufacturers letting go of decks and superstructures. There would be no need for crew quarters, deckhouse and lifeboats. With that out of the way, ships would become cheaper and more spacious, so they would carry more cargo. 

On the other hand, human errors would be reduced and ships would be left to communicate by satellite with the control center, only in emergency situations. On those occasions, humans could activate drones to survey the area and figure out what’s wrong before taking a decision. Otherwise, computers would take over cameras, infrared systems, radar, lidar, microphones, sonar, and GPS.

There are two issues, though.

First, engineers would have to figure out how to tackle all the necessary bandwith. Secondly, autonomous ships would need time to access a database with all types of ships available and their missions. But as Oskar Levander, Rolls-Royce, Vice President of Innovation – Marine put it, it is not a question of whether but of when: “This is happening. It’s not if, it’s when. The technologies needed to make remote and autonomous ships a reality exist. The AAWA project* is testing sensor arrays in a range of operating and climatic conditions in Finland and has created a simulated autonomous ship control system which allows the behaviour of the complete communication system to be explored. We will see a remote controlled ship in commercial use by the end of the decade.”

*Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications initiative, led by Rolls Royce PLC.