The Mayflower Autonomous Ship Project

https://newsroom.ibm.com/then-and-now

by adamfeldman • 6 years ago

38 22 6 years ago

newsroom.ibm.com

davedx• 6 years ago

Hope it can follow Col Regs.

jackyinger• 6 years ago

For those who aren’t avid boaters: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_fo...

Looking at that tiny wing sail, it’s gonna be sloowwww. Maybe that’ll help?

CocoaGeek• 6 years ago

AFAIK, it's solar powered and not wind powered.

WJW2• 6 years ago

20 knots is not all that slow. According to google average container ship speed is about 24 knots. Even the navy destroyer I used to sail on topped out at 30 knots using its gas turbines, which were only to be used for "serious purposes".

scooble2• 6 years ago

I suspect it can't by definition. It is not clear how an unmanned vessel can maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing (rule 5) for example.

It is possible that it has the ability to determine things like which tack another sailing vessel is on (which it will need if it is sailpowered) as well as identifying things like day shapes, light patterns and sound signals and adjusting its behaviour accordingly. I am a little doubtful though. Similar projects seem to rely on AIS for collision prevention, which will mean that it can't 'see' any recreational vessels who lack AIS type A.

option_greek• 6 years ago

Looks like they have found their new 'Watson' for the Ocean. At least this one probably does something useful. Everything IBM does using buzzwords seems to be to keep their consultancy business thriving and staying in the news.

Animats• 6 years ago

Wave Gliders [1] have been doing that for years.

The tiny Wave Gliders are quite useful. They're small, smaller than a surfboard. They're considered "marine debris" for vessel safety purposes. Electronics is so small today that they carry compute power, GPS, cameras, and Iridium for communications, plus other small oceanographic instruments as desired. They're tough enough to survive hurricanes. The control center has AIS info and steers them away from vessel traffic. Propulsion is mostly passive, using wave action to propel the glider forward. They're slow, but make steady progress.

It's a quiet, useful and profitable technology.

[1] https://www.liquid-robotics.com/wave-glider/overview/

shadowprofile77• 6 years ago

Profitable to the manufacturers? Or profitable to buyers because of data collected?

learn_more• 6 years ago

I wonder how the Wave Glider deals with fouling of the umbilical from seaweed and fishing gear?

yalogin• 6 years ago

Sorry for the tangent, but I am surprised to see a dedicated section to Blockchain on their site. Its right alongside Cloud, IoT and Security. Wonder what they do with it.

EDIT: I need to clarify a bit. I clicked on the link yes. However there are pages of it, wasn't sure if its aspirational or they actually make money off it

wilg• 6 years ago

Did you click it?

maxwell• 6 years ago

https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/solutions/food-trust

rsynnott• 6 years ago

It was all the rage a few years back; everyone had an aspirational blockchain project. It being IBM, they’ll probably vaguely keep at it long after it’s passé.

silentwanderer• 6 years ago

I know this is a dumb thing to complain about, but why is their CGI so bad?

bloudermilk• 6 years ago

If you like autonomous ships, check out Saildrone

Saildrone designs and manufactures wind and solar-powered autonomous surface vehicles called saildrones, which make cost-effective ocean data collection possible at scale. We are building the world's largest high-resolution ocean datasets, working with governments and private companies around the globe.

https://climatescape.org/organizations/saildrone

AnotherGoodName• 6 years ago

I feel Mary Celeste would have been a better name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste

eat_veggies• 6 years ago

Yes! Not only does Mary Celeste have a way cooler name and backstory than the Mayflower, it also carries fewer weird colonial/imperialist connotations.

SrslyJosh• 6 years ago

An unfortunate name.

The Mayflower Autonomous Ship Project

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