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Autonomous Boats sounds great, through I do see a few things that will be needed that thankfully might have a better chance of being implemented on boats compar
by belorn 5y ago
Autonomous Boats sounds great, through I do see a few things that will be needed that thankfully might have a better chance of being implemented on boats compared to cars. Coast guard and Maritime search and rescue will need to have the ability to shut down any boat in an radius in case swimmers or scuba divers get into the lane.
I can also see this being used in places like Norway and Sweden where car ferries are used as an alternative to bridges. Those are slow (<10 knots) barge-like boats, and in my experience quite overbuilt in terms of withstanding any kind of weather. They are quite bit more dangerous in term of mass and distance, but they can be quite cost-effective compared to bridges and environmental friendly if electrified. In terms of making those safe enough I suspect you would need more than just lidar, but since they are bigger and have a potentially higher budget I can imagine they could afford a bit more radar/sonar/radio technology to identify ships and other things that might be in the water.
- nradov 5y agoDepending on the area there aren't necessarily defined lanes. Any vessel could by conducting dive operations so autonomous vessels would need to maintain situational awareness by monitoring VHF radio and watching for signal flags. Civilian sonar systems aren't usable for collision avoidance.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoWhat advantage would there be in making ferries in Norway autonomous? I think that even the ferry where I live (shortest scheduled crossing in Europe I think, less than ten minutes) would still need someone onboard to deal with the customers and handle emergencies. So you might reduce the crew from three to one during normal operation but when something goes wrong those other two will be needed again.
- belorn 5y agoI am unsure how much you actually need someone to deal with customers. Roads/bridges are already automated in terms of reading the registration sign and the payment is also automated. The biggest issue from my experience is customers not knowing which lane to go to or where to park, but that seems like a problem which could be fixed through clearer markings and signs. The ferry is basically just a floating road, with the driver inside the car at all times. There are many smaller island with permanent resident, and only so much money to build bridges. Some places I know only have a ferry that goes there a few times a day. Making those kind of ferries cheaper would both improve those peoples lives but also enable more people to live in such locations. Without crunching the numbers, it seems possible that an autonomous ferry could be made cheaper than what an equal distance of road on land.
- nradov 5y agoThere is some potential to automate navigation for ferries travelling on short fixed routes. But trained crew members will always be needed to deal with emergencies such as fires, man overboard, flooding, mechanical failures, etc. It's just completely impossible to automate that stuff.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoThe ferry is typically much more cramped than the road. Cars, bikes, motorbikes, trucks, tractors, diggers all have to be able to get on board without interfering with each other and without trapping anyone in their vehicles. Even with a willing and cooperative population this gets occasionally difficult, especially when tourists or other people who have never travelled on the ferry before are involved. > Without crunching the numbers, it seems possible that an autonomous ferry could be made cheaper than what an equal distance of road on land. The existing ferry is already considerably cheaper than a road bridge would be. It seems to me that an autonomous ferry would merely shift the work to development and maintenance of the system and add risk.