19:50 1 April 2020
AI AI Captain! Futuristic ship to go on unmanned 400-yr-old voyage across Atlantic
The hull of one of the world’s first unmanned and autonomous ships was built at the Aluship Technology shipyard in Gdańsk, north Poland. In September, the unit – aptly named Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) – will sail from the UK to the US to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower: an English ship that transported the first English Puritans, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth, England to the New World in 1620.
MAS is being created on the initiative of ProMare – a British non-profit organization dealing with marine research, in cooperation with IBM, a tech giant.
“MAS is a project that aims to build an unmanned and fully autonomous ship. It will be one of the first units of this type in the world. Thanks to artificial intelligence, it will navigate the seas and oceans without any human intervention,” Piotr Beńke, Chief Technology Officer for IBM Poland & Baltics, was quoted as saying by PAP news agency.
The ship will be powered by electricity from wind and sun. An emergency diesel generator will also be on board. The installation of subsystems and their tests will last until June. Next, an artificial-intelligence-(AI)-powered captain will be installed, that will manage the unit and the final tests of the ship will begin.
(PAP)
