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Rolls-Royce Drone Ships Challenge $375B Freight Industry

128 points by r0h1n 13y ago

gk1 13y ago
I see this as a reality. The majority of ships' machinery is already automated and/or controlled remotely, so it's not a huge leap to leave the operator(s) shoreside.
- matznerd 13y ago
  That reminds me of the futurist joke: In the future a {plane|factory|boat} will have only a dog and a human in it. The human is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to make sure the human doesn't touch the controls.
- HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
  Do you think the reliability is up to it? I'm thinking of in relation to an airliner that was inspected just before a flight that will be at most 12 hours long. OTOH, compare that to Oakland to Osaka (to pull two cities out of the air) and a trip taking around two weeks. What level of reliability do you need to have to ensure that nothing important breaks? Does this impose an additional cost that's less than the savings of having no crew. It's an interesting idea that I'm sure will eventually happen but I'm wondering if it's really ready for prime time.
  - gk1 13y ago
    There are enough mechanical parts in a plant that at least one will break during a two-week voyage. However, reliability is already something that's being improved year-after-year, along with added fail-safe systems, so I don't suspect it'll be a great barrier.
    - im3w1l 13y ago
      A ship is sinking with humans: we must rescue them whatever it takes! without humans: oh well, cost of doing business. Drones have an acceptable failure rate.
matznerd 13y ago
-I liked this quote: "“If everybody in the industry would say, ‘Yes, this is the way to go,’ then we are too late.” -I think it's possible. It might also be viable to have a mix of a few manned ships (cargo or otherwise) leading a group of drone ships. -We, as humans, need to get used to the fact that machines are going to become better (not to mention cheaper) than us at almost every task we now classify as human only. -And this makes me envision a time in the future where Somali pirates use computers instead of guns to take over ships.
- njharman 13y ago
  > Somali pirates use computers instead of guns to take over ships My first thought, although probably not actual Somali's.
  - matznerd 13y ago
    It's possible that they will be vulnerable remotely, but there is also the possibility to create interference or jam the signal with proximity to the ship. Maybe they will work in tandem with an online team... I imagine the ships going through dangerous territory would probably have some sort of defense, if not munitions, then sound, laser, or other type. It's also not crazy to imagine that the ships would have flying drones on them for reconnaissance and other uses.
    - Shivetya 13y ago
      I am quite sure the options the military is exploring and now using to keep that from happening to their drones would be applied here. Ships could be instructed to accept orders under very strict rules, perhaps even ignoring orders while operating in certain regions. Given full ability to understand their surroundings they could avoid collisions with anything that would seriously damage their hulls and ignore most smaller vessels that are acting in obvious means to try an intercept them. Plus with no crew on board you do not need to provide easy access to anything, just seal it. I am more interested in driver less big rigs and trains. I figure that planes and ships are more heavily protected by union organizations.
vrikis 13y ago
I too see this happening, and am always surprised these companies aren't pushing faster for this... I also think of delivery vans and lorries around the city - whenever I walk to work I see about a dozen delivery vans and lorries, all just driving back-and-forth to deliver bread to shops, etc. and I always think that one day, we'll totally automate all this...
- fr0sty 13y ago
  > we'll totally automate all this How? A driver-less truck pulls up to the front of a corner store. Then what? Someone still has to take the (correct) product from the truck, load it on a hand cart, take it into each shop and put it on the shelves. Normally this is the driver of the truck, but if you automate him away then every shop-keep need a guy hanging around to unload the auto-delivery trucks all day or take time away from serving customers to do it themselves. That is not a clear net win to me. It is a physical manifestation of automated phone support. Cheaper to implement by the company but more time consuming and less useful for the users and less efficient overall...
  - icebraining 13y ago
    I've never seen a truck driver restock a shelve; what kind of shops are you thinking of? Unloading the delivery of boxes should possible to automate using a robot like those from Kiva Systems, even if harder due to less standard conditions.
    - RogerL 13y ago
      It depends. I worked in a small convenience store in the late 80s. The bread delivery (loaf bread, donuts, hostess twinkies, and so on) would directly fill the specialized display stands for these items. Part of the job was to remove items past the sell date. Ditto for items like nuts, ice, and such. Other items were ordered from a wholesale distributer. Those were delivered by truck to the loading dock in cardboard boxes. We moved those into the store, unpacked the boxes, and filled the shelves. Beer and such was put into the walk-in by the driver, and we stocked the coolers as needed. It will be a long time before the local ice distributer goes automatic (for economic reasons it makes sense to make and distribute ice very locally). But wholesale distributers? I can see a truck with a lift gate and some kind of robot to automatically unload the truck. We always had to be there to receive anyway, except it was a human with a dolly moving the boxes into the bay.
tenpoundhammer 13y ago
It’s easy to miss the bigger picture here. With a fully automated unmanned ship you could explore business models that you otherwise would never consider. For instance, With no humans aboard you could have a ship that is super slow and super energy efficient, it could cast itself out into currents, use a variety of novel locomotive methods in a significantly longer but cheaper journey. With no people aboard to pay, feed, etc, it wouldn’t matter how long it took. While this is one novel scenario, which probably wouldn’t work for a million reasons, there are probably a hundred more ideas that would work for a automated ship that are currently unfeasible.
- vidarh 13y ago
  > With no people aboard to pay, feed, etc, it wouldn’t matter how long it took. Yes, it would, because it would limit the number of times you can turn over your assets, as more of your assets will be locked up in goods in transit at any time, and no bank will offer you free credit for 100% of its value, so there's a real monetary cost to slower delivery. Of course that doesn't mean that slower delivery can't be a benefit, but there will be a cutoff point where it starts to cost more than you save.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    Assuming the goods aren't time-sensitive, then it's just a normal investment. You get a larger reward, but it happens further in the future. Perhaps investors could buy the goods (or make a loan) after they leave the shore, sell them when they get back, and pocket the difference.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      Sort of. It's not that simple. You can't just compare the rewards. You also need to compare the time element, because it limits how many rewards you can get. For an illustration of how dramatic this can be, consider that a major factor of Apples success, for example, is that their inventory turnover has skyrocketed - to more than 60 times a year as of 2012, compared to ~36 times a year for Dell (inventory turnover was one of the things Dell used to be famous for) or about 15 times a year for RIM. In other words in 2012, for every $1m of capital locked up in in inventory at any one time, if Apple had 10% margin before considering capital costs for the inventory, they'd make $100k per turnover, for $6m, while RIM would have made $1.5m. That capital is not free - you're either facing borrowing costs or inability to invest it elsewhere. (of course the shipping is clearly not the only thing affecting inventory turnover) > Perhaps investors could buy the goods (or make a loan) after they leave the shore, sell them when they get back, and pocket the difference. Banks have had revolving credit facilities to handle this kind of thing pretty much as long as banks have existed. This changes the numbers but not the overall principle. To be clear: It is likely that there can be savings to make this way - I'm not disputing that. E.g. there's already at least one cargo ship that uses a kite to save fuel costs by relying on wind ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails ). Clearly that's one thing that might make it profitable to making smart decisions about routes that maximize fuel savings even if that may slow down the delivery. My point is just that it isn't sufficient to look at the savings for a single shipment - you also need to consider that the shipment will tie up substantial capital, and that has a cost per day too, whether in credit costs or in reduced ability to turn over inventory, and that will create very real limitations on how much you can slow down ships and still see benefits.
washedup 13y ago
My biggest question is how they plan on securing these ships. Pirates would likely see this as a huge opportunity.
- splat 13y ago
  Who would they take hostage?
  - beagle90 13y ago
    This also. Without hostages the pirates are open to a world of hurt. Here's to hoping the Somalian pirates won't need to be as desperate by the time these ships set sail.
    - washedup 13y ago
      Without hostages, if they can override the piloting, they have a bunch of cargo with no lives attached.
      - TeMPOraL 13y ago
        And with little reason for the local navy to not come in guns blazing.
- beagle90 13y ago
  This was my initial thought. Then I realised whatever sensors are on-board these things would likely detect incoming pirate attacks (of the physical kind) from miles away (think satellites). At which point nearby naval forces would be alerted. Hell, you could go a step further and equip each one with it's own drone to defend itself in case of attack.
  - washedup 13y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if that's the goal!
  - 13y ago
yread 13y ago
It would be cool technology and cut emissions (12 to 15% is not bad at all) but I don't want to be on a dismasted yacht doing ocean crossing in the middle of a storm with all the nearest vessels computer-controlled, without life-support systems, unable to help me
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Adventure yachtists are a small enough group maybe we can just not worry about them having to give up their dangerous activity. The activity is also esoteric enough that it would not be ridiculous to demand that the participants pay for their own safety net.
  - dalke 13y ago
    Yachts aren't the only ships on the oceans which might need rescue. Consider a similar scenario with a fishing trawler stranded at sea instead of a yacht. It's possible to do a cost-benefit analysis, but it's not meaningful if it only takes into account adventure yachtists. What about fishing boats which have been hit by freighters (as in http://gcaptain.com/dutch-freighter-sinks-french-trawler/ http://gcaptain.com/dutch-freighter-sinks-french-trawler/ )? Do the owners of uncrewed freighters have no culpability or responsibility in helping contribute towards a safety net even though the freighter might be the cause of a problem? Freighters themselves also have problems at sea. Eg, http://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/68327/vietnamese-freighter-sinks-due-to-stormy-weather/ http://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/68327/vietnamese-freig... concerns a freighter where 18 of the crew were rescued by another freighter, the Pacific Skipper. Here's a case where a cargo ship hit a ferry - http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/18/world/asia/philippines-ships-collision/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/18/world/asia/philippines-shi... . The crew of the cargo ship, plus the navy, Coast Guard and other commercial vessels, worked to rescue some of the passengers. If commercial vessels were uncrewed then that's fewer ships that could have helped.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      > If commercial vessels were uncrewed then that's fewer ships that could have helped. It's also vastly fewer ships that could end up in trouble with crews that will need to be rescued.
dzhiurgis 13y ago
> Cameras and sensors can already detect obstacles in the water better than the human eye. I wish that was available on consumer sailing boats. There are lots of hazards for small vessels out there. And to be honest, lately big ships are one of them. No crew is actually watching anything other, but the radar & AIS, hence small boats can be destroyed and never found again. As per piloting - the first crude autopilots were made in 1970s...
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
I think the major problem is that piracy has always, till now, had someone to "repel boarders". Now it is a matter of climbing on board and breaking the locks. (And no I don't think automated guns will be an acceptable solution. I can't see the NY port Authotirty being happy about armed computers sliding into view. (Why am I thinking of the Matrix cartoon / prequels now?)
- DaveLond 13y ago
  Assuming you get boarded by pirates, what happens next? Why would you need a bridge that could command the ship? Even if you did, turn it off unless you can remotely switch it on again. How much damage can pirates do to an empty ship? Plus, no hostages, so there wouldn't be much stopping armed forces going in guns-blazing.
  - matznerd 13y ago
    Disable the ships communications with jamming device. Tow it to port, hold ransom for % of cargo, or sell cargo in the local market.
    - baddox 13y ago
      Still sounds better than doing the same thing, but with a crew on board.
    - emgeee 13y ago
      Is "towing it to port" really something that is that easy to do? These are big ships that are probably not easy to make disappear. Also, without hostages, using armed forces to take the ship back would probably be a lot easier. Finally, depending on the cargo and location, I would imagine selling off the cargo would be a simple matter.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > These are big ships that are probably not easy to make disappear. The ship itself is often the drop location for ransoms; piracy doesn't generally require hiding the ship. > Also, without hostages, using armed forces to take the ship back would probably be a lot easier. This is a significant point.
dkoch 13y ago
I don't know anything about shipping, but I wonder how much of the crews' time is spent in maintenance and repairs. Are they trained to fix common issues? What happens when the robot boats break down? Or are they just there to fill minimum crew size regulations and babysit ships that mostly drive themselves anyways?
- gk1 13y ago
  Speaking as a former ship engineer (and designer), the engineering crew is mostly there to operate and monitor the plant. This is done from a computer. Almost everything in a modern engine space is automated or can be operated remotely from the engineering control station (the aforementioned computer). That includes opening and closing valves, starting up and shutting down systems, troubleshooting, and so on. Unfortunately some times the sensors or actuators break, so an engineer will have to do some manual work. I suspect older engineers are more likely to do this, because they still think their own intuition is better than some algorithm (case in point: see quote in article from the union representative). As for maintenance, it gets done in port. There are times, however, when things break horribly, and the engineers have to fix it themselves while at sea or find a work-around. With a drone fleet, one way to deal with this may be to have engineering teams on stand-by, ready to helo to a broken drone ship and do repairs.
  - alexhawdon 13y ago
    > one way to deal with this may be to have engineering teams on stand-by, ready to helo to a broken drone ship and do repairs. If the ships travelled in groups of 3+ then in the event of a failure the other two ships could tow the failed ship? Is this feasible? I honestly have no idea.
    - gk1 13y ago
      Not with current ship designs. It takes an enormous amount of power to tow a loaded cargo ship. They're built with some power redundancy, but not enough extra to tow another loaded ship.
    - 13y ago
drawkbox 13y ago
This could also provide more information about the oceans being totally automated. They would need to map the ocean (and problems) more closely to navigate. I just hope they can still find and pickup Tom Hanks and Wilson.
lutusp 13y ago
This idea fails a basic reality check -- piracy. During my around-the-world solo sail (http://arachnoid.com/sailbook http://arachnoid.com/sailbook) I heard any number of accounts of cargo vessels being boarded by pirates late at night, to steal cargo and slip away undetected by the skeleton crew that shipping operators prefer. The idea of a robot vessel would only make this problem worse. The article says, "Unmanned ships would also reduce risks such as piracy, since there would be no hostages to capture ..." But much piracy, for example in the eastern Indian Ocean, is after cargo, not hostages. Pirates could disable the propulsion system of, then loot, a robot cargo ship in the far reaches of the Indian Ocean where governmental controls are much weaker than elsewhere.
- gk1 13y ago
  I think that's a solvable problem. As quoted in the article, just make the trouble of stealing cargo more hassle than it's worth. I'm not saying it'd be easy, but it's not the showstopper you make it out to be.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > As quoted in the article, just make the trouble of stealing cargo more hassle than it's worth. If that were feasible, shipping companies would have done it already. As to piracy, a robot ship represents an added risk, not a reduced one. Just look at Internet crime and compare it with old-style bank robberies to see my point -- those who robbed Mt. Gox didn't have to risk a face-to-face confrontation with an armed guard. It's the same here. > I'm not saying it'd be easy, but it's not the showstopper you make it out to be. I'll bet that's what the backers of Bitcoin said -- until a week ago.
    - baddox 13y ago
      Has the Bitcoin show been stopped? I've been following the Bitcoin community fairly closely, and I must have missed it.
      - lutusp 13y ago
matznerd 13y ago
Also forgot to mention, this autonomous drone just finished sailing from California to Hawaii -> http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/02/saildrone/ http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/02/saildrone/
robomartin 13y ago
12 to 15 percent more efficient because you eliminate people? And where is the part where a miricle occurs and the laws of physics are modified? The efficiency and pollution problem with cargo ships can't be fixed with more crgo ships. That's just insane. Build a dedicated high-speed nuclear, wind and solar powered high speed cargo train connecting the US coasts and the gulf. This alone would eliminate some ten thousand cargo ships per year making the trek through the Panama Canal. During this trek they burn over a million dollars of bunker fuel, the nastiest most polluting fuel you can burn. Methinks this is just one of those "let's burn government money 'cause they don't know any better" scams. Not the first time.
- matteotom 13y ago
  Did you even read the article? "By replacing the bridge -- along with the other systems that support the crew, such as electricity, air conditioning, water and sewage..." It's not just eliminating people. It's eliminating the whole bridge, and adding more cargo. And the 12 to 15 percent number might be a "fuel per unit of cargo" number, not necessarily "total fuel per boat". "Build a dedicated high-speed nuclear, wind and solar powered high speed cargo train connecting the US coasts and the gulf" Who do you propose pays for this, the government which "don't now any better"? Private companies? If this was actually cheaper than burning a million dollars of fuel, they would have done it already. And I doubt trains could carry nearly as much cargo as a large cargo ship.
  - robomartin 13y ago
    > Did you even read the article? Of course I did. And I am disputing these numbers. The Maersk triple e class cargo ships can carry 18,000 containers. There is no way removing crew quarters will make room for another 1,800. For one thing, even an autonomous ship must have the ability to be crewed from onboard due to safety/emergency considerations. It's a pipe dream, a stunt, just like Amazon delivering packages in a busy city using drones. The hydrodynamic drag of these ships by far overwhelms the cost equation. The only way you are going to save 10% is by slowing down. And you can do that just fine with a crew. In fact, this is precisely what they do to control costs. I did extensive research on this topic about three years ago. If I remember correctly, the trip from Shaghai to Europe through the Suez canal takes approximately 32 days. When fuel costs spiked cargo ships slowed down to make the same trip in sixty days in order to control costs. I could be wrong, of course. Based on what i know I just don't see how automation could make such an impact. The 800 pound gorilla isn't the crew quarters, it's physics.
bbosh 13y ago
When each shipment nets maybe $30,000,000 for the shipping company and you pay about £20,000 for the crew during that time, you'd need to save a lot of money elsewhere to make this worthwhile.
- RKoutnik 13y ago
  FYI: £20,000 === $33,390.
- the_french 13y ago
  You're forgetting costs associated with crew beyond pay. You also have to pay for food, insurance etc.. there's the risk of hostages being taken. Additionally, removing the bridge/crew quarters makes for more space to put containers, the ships could end up looking like barges with the entire top surface covered in containers.
- Groxx 13y ago
  I'm not sure that's accurate. The article mentions this: >Crew costs of $3,299 a day account for about 44 percent of total operating expenses for a large container ship, according to Moore Stephens LLP, an industry accountant and consultant. That would be what, 10 days at sea? Are they really that fast? Even if so, where does 44% come from?
  - dalke 13y ago
    Here's the chart you probably want: http://www.hsh-nordbank.com/media/en/pdf/kundenbereiche/schifffahrt/research/betriebskosten_studie09/Kurzfassung_Betriebskostenstudie2009.pdf http://www.hsh-nordbank.com/media/en/pdf/kundenbereiche/schi... It lists a median cost of US$3,712/day for manning costs, with a total operating cost of $8,138/day => 45.6% .
wil421 13y ago
What happens when Pirates bored an unmanned ship? Negativity aside, this looks like the future I hope that consumer grade cars/transportation will eventually have this. I can imagine a highway of the future with a lane for autonomous vehicles instead of truck drivers. Heck most airplanes fly themselves.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  What happens when armed pirates board a manned ship? The crew is unarmed and is supposed to lock themselves in a secure room, which is exactly the same as a computer would do. The unmanned option is better in case of piracy, since due to lack of hostages there is less pressure for ransom and it's safer to re-capture the ship before it can be delivered to a pirate friendly port. The real vulnerability of unmanned ship is against small-scale theft (a rubber dinghy boarding, opening a container and stealing a few TVs), but for large cargo ships thieves can do the same without the crew noticing; so it can be covered by insurance probably.
  - wil421 13y ago
    Right, but I was thinking about the damage they could do or what happens if they shut the engines off. Who will come and get the ship and how long will that take. Help could be days away how much could be stolen in that time. I believe the pirates are in it for the insurance money for the hostages anyway I doubt they want to fence any actual goods.
- danmatan 13y ago
  I can imagine a previously smooth road now in around-the-clock gridlock with pedestrians jay-walking with impunity.
  - eru 13y ago
    And that would be a good thing!
LeChuck 13y ago
I would like to see some redundancy in navigational equipment before this becomes a reality. Currently ships only have traditional navigation methods to fall back on if satellite navigation fails. While there are some projects underway to find a seamless replacement for GNSS [1], none are quite there yet. [1] http://www.e-navigation.net/index.php?page=resilient-pnt-from-pnt-unit-concept-to-first-realization http://www.e-navigation.net/index.php?page=resilient-pnt-fro...
Zigurd 13y ago
I'm surprised at all the "piracy" objections. With no human operable "helm" there is no way to divert the ship, short of posessing an engine more powerful than the ship's engine, and no crew to hold hostage. Potentially some containers could be opened and looted, but the practical amount of looting is a fraction of one container. The real objections should be about failure modes of ships and what a crew can to to mitigate them. But even this angle is susceptible to the possibility that the safest crew and ship is an un-crewed ship. If you are not on the ship, you can't cause an accident, and you won't die in an accident.
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  > With no human operable "helm" there is no way to divert the ship, short of posessing an engine more powerful than the ship's engine Because engines are impossible to disable, GPS is impossible to spoof, and control systems are impossible to hack even with unlimited physical access. > no crew to hold hostage There's a fancy robotic ship and a bunch of cargo to hold hostage. > the practical amount of looting is a fraction of one container How do you reckon? I suppose if the value-density of the cargo were low enough then nobody would have incentive to steal it, so they would have to threaten to destroy it instead. > The real objections should be about failure modes of ships and what a crew can to to mitigate them. You're absolutely right. But piracy is one of those failure modes.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    There are low hundreds of attempts and a few dozen successful ship hijackings per year. It is, overall, a very small part of freight theft, the vast majority of which happens on land. This should be obvious: on land, you don't need a boat big enough to float a container to steal a container. You just need a access to a semi-tractor and maybe a trailer. If you make the technical demands on a successful hijacking higher, I expect these numbers to fall. I also expect self-driving trucks to sharply cut theft, rather than enable it.
    - PeterisP 13y ago
      Can you elaborate why you believe self-driving trucks would reduce theft? They feel like the easiest thing to rob on any low-traffic road - you need two people in masks, one walks in the middle of the road in front of the truck so it stops in order to avoid "traffic accident", the second one takes whatever he wants from the back, and both leave through a side path too narrow for the truck to follow. Even if you get a cop car there within 10 minutes, all you've got is a video without faces.
cratermoon 13y ago
How would they be necessarily faster and less polluting? Sure, waste from crew activities is part of the output, but most of it could be recycled or composted. The big source of pollution is the diesel engines, and those wouldn't change much. And faster? Whatever weight savings came from removing crew accommodations would just be used to fit more TEUs for the trip.
- winslow 13y ago
  I had the same question. I suppose they might be referring to newer technology to limit emissions and maybe bio-diesel? Other than that I don't see why removing the crew would be less polluting. Edit: According to the quote [1], it seems like the engines wouldn't necessarily be more efficient but rather more cargo per ship increasing the shipment to fuel ratio. Somewhat similar to CSX's fuel saving slogan "Trains can move a ton of freight nearly 450 miles on a single gallon of fuel." [2]. [1] - "By replacing the bridge -- along with the other systems that support the crew, such as electricity, air conditioning, water and sewage -- with more cargo, ships can cut costs and boost revenue, Levander said. The ships would be 5 percent lighter before loading cargo and would burn 12 percent to 15 percent less fuel, he said." [2] - http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-csx/projects-and-partnerships/fuel-efficiency/ http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-csx/projects-and-partners...
  - cratermoon 13y ago
    > The ships would be 5 percent lighter before loading cargo and would burn 12 percent to 15 percent less fuel, he said. And what's to say the amount of cargo carried wouldn't simply be increased by 5 percent or so, offsetting any gains?
    - winslow 13y ago
      They aren't necessarily worried about the cargo simply offsetting the weight. It's the fact that the space previously used for the bridge and human living area is used for cargo instead. Ultimately this would increase the shipment to fuel ratio per cargo ship.
notahacker 13y ago
I suspect the bigger problem is that ultra reliable ships with state-of-the art communications and robotics will seldom be cheaper than a creaky old tub manned by Filipino sailors, especially Filipino sailors willing to accept non-unionized wages.
- jevinskie 13y ago
  I thought so as well but the article stated that 44% of costs go towards the crew and their supplies.
- eru 13y ago
  The Philippines won't stay poor forever.
shubb 13y ago
This is what an undisrupted industry sounds like. You hear it from train driver unions, banks, and doctors. There is merit in what they say about safety, but they see it not as a set of problems that might be overcome, but as a way of shutting down the conversation. They don't want to think about how easily a significant part of what they do could be automated or eliminated. The heuristic is not that they object, it is that they don't want to discuss, even as speculation. It's interesting that one place these objections haven't come up is air travel. Because if you think about it, air travel should be a place we fear to automated, but we already did it. Autopilot sort of sneaked in before people realized what automation was, and pilots are comfortable that they still have a place alongside the machines, so they are happy to talk, and explain as slowly as necessary that automated landing might be a good idea one day, but automating a crash landing wouldn't work out well. The way this usually seems to work out is, everyone says it's impossible, until someone does it, and eats the other players alive. The most interesting thing here is that the insurers are the barrier. When drone designs are up and running, there will be a niche for an insurer that will take the risk, and in these days of crowd funding, you wouldn't need to be an entrenched player to take it.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  It's not just the insurers but regulations. Although I wonder how much they can skirt around that, for example hiring a bunch of low wage unskilled workers to just sit on the ship doing nothing so it counts as "manned". Perhaps you could have the ship be remote controlled rather than completely autonomous. When something unexpected happened, a person takes over remotely, but otherwise it acts like autopilot. Perhaps the boats could transfer cargo to and from manned boats in international waters to get around local regulations, or even just bring people on board the ship.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    If they get a single insurer and a single tiny maritime nation onboard, then they can do everything easily. "Flags of convenience" work just fine for circumventing inconveniences.
- dalke 13y ago
pinaceae 13y ago
i love how everyone here latches onto bad pirates boarding a drone. why would a drone ship have any human navigable rigging? drones do not have cockpits, life support systems, etc. a drone ship would have cargo containers all around, no bridge, no control room, etc. how do you board something that has no surface meant for humans?
- analog31 13y ago
  Drone helicopters.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dalke 13y ago
  Those containers were attached to the deck or other containers, and inspected. That requires humans to have access to the containers to lash them down, at least for those which reach above the deck. This requires a surface meant for humans.
gfodor 13y ago
If only Rolls Royce had posted this idea to Hacker News first, they could have abandoned it after reading all the insightful comments about piracy.

128 points by r0h1n 13y ago

gk1 13y ago

I see this as a reality. The majority of ships' machinery is already automated and/or controlled remotely, so it's not a huge leap to leave the operator(s) shoreside.

matznerd 13y ago
That reminds me of the futurist joke: In the future a {plane|factory|boat} will have only a dog and a human in it. The human is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to make sure the human doesn't touch the controls.
HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
Do you think the reliability is up to it? I'm thinking of in relation to an airliner that was inspected just before a flight that will be at most 12 hours long. OTOH, compare that to Oakland to Osaka (to pull two cities out of the air) and a trip taking around two weeks. What level of reliability do you need to have to ensure that nothing important breaks? Does this impose an additional cost that's less than the savings of having no crew. It's an interesting idea that I'm sure will eventually happen but I'm wondering if it's really ready for prime time.
- gk1 13y ago
  There are enough mechanical parts in a plant that at least one will break during a two-week voyage. However, reliability is already something that's being improved year-after-year, along with added fail-safe systems, so I don't suspect it'll be a great barrier.
  - im3w1l 13y ago
    A ship is sinking with humans: we must rescue them whatever it takes! without humans: oh well, cost of doing business. Drones have an acceptable failure rate.

matznerd 13y ago

-I liked this quote: "“If everybody in the industry would say, ‘Yes, this is the way to go,’ then we are too late.” -I think it's possible. It might also be viable to have a mix of a few manned ships (cargo or otherwise) leading a group of drone ships. -We, as humans, need to get used to the fact that machines are going to become better (not to mention cheaper) than us at almost every task we now classify as human only. -And this makes me envision a time in the future where Somali pirates use computers instead of guns to take over ships.

njharman 13y ago
> Somali pirates use computers instead of guns to take over ships My first thought, although probably not actual Somali's.
- matznerd 13y ago
  It's possible that they will be vulnerable remotely, but there is also the possibility to create interference or jam the signal with proximity to the ship. Maybe they will work in tandem with an online team... I imagine the ships going through dangerous territory would probably have some sort of defense, if not munitions, then sound, laser, or other type. It's also not crazy to imagine that the ships would have flying drones on them for reconnaissance and other uses.
  - Shivetya 13y ago
    I am quite sure the options the military is exploring and now using to keep that from happening to their drones would be applied here. Ships could be instructed to accept orders under very strict rules, perhaps even ignoring orders while operating in certain regions. Given full ability to understand their surroundings they could avoid collisions with anything that would seriously damage their hulls and ignore most smaller vessels that are acting in obvious means to try an intercept them. Plus with no crew on board you do not need to provide easy access to anything, just seal it. I am more interested in driver less big rigs and trains. I figure that planes and ships are more heavily protected by union organizations.

vrikis 13y ago

I too see this happening, and am always surprised these companies aren't pushing faster for this... I also think of delivery vans and lorries around the city - whenever I walk to work I see about a dozen delivery vans and lorries, all just driving back-and-forth to deliver bread to shops, etc. and I always think that one day, we'll totally automate all this...

fr0sty 13y ago
> we'll totally automate all this How? A driver-less truck pulls up to the front of a corner store. Then what? Someone still has to take the (correct) product from the truck, load it on a hand cart, take it into each shop and put it on the shelves. Normally this is the driver of the truck, but if you automate him away then every shop-keep need a guy hanging around to unload the auto-delivery trucks all day or take time away from serving customers to do it themselves. That is not a clear net win to me. It is a physical manifestation of automated phone support. Cheaper to implement by the company but more time consuming and less useful for the users and less efficient overall...
- icebraining 13y ago
  I've never seen a truck driver restock a shelve; what kind of shops are you thinking of? Unloading the delivery of boxes should possible to automate using a robot like those from Kiva Systems, even if harder due to less standard conditions.
  - RogerL 13y ago
    It depends. I worked in a small convenience store in the late 80s. The bread delivery (loaf bread, donuts, hostess twinkies, and so on) would directly fill the specialized display stands for these items. Part of the job was to remove items past the sell date. Ditto for items like nuts, ice, and such. Other items were ordered from a wholesale distributer. Those were delivered by truck to the loading dock in cardboard boxes. We moved those into the store, unpacked the boxes, and filled the shelves. Beer and such was put into the walk-in by the driver, and we stocked the coolers as needed. It will be a long time before the local ice distributer goes automatic (for economic reasons it makes sense to make and distribute ice very locally). But wholesale distributers? I can see a truck with a lift gate and some kind of robot to automatically unload the truck. We always had to be there to receive anyway, except it was a human with a dolly moving the boxes into the bay.

tenpoundhammer 13y ago

It’s easy to miss the bigger picture here. With a fully automated unmanned ship you could explore business models that you otherwise would never consider. For instance, With no humans aboard you could have a ship that is super slow and super energy efficient, it could cast itself out into currents, use a variety of novel locomotive methods in a significantly longer but cheaper journey. With no people aboard to pay, feed, etc, it wouldn’t matter how long it took. While this is one novel scenario, which probably wouldn’t work for a million reasons, there are probably a hundred more ideas that would work for a automated ship that are currently unfeasible.

vidarh 13y ago
> With no people aboard to pay, feed, etc, it wouldn’t matter how long it took. Yes, it would, because it would limit the number of times you can turn over your assets, as more of your assets will be locked up in goods in transit at any time, and no bank will offer you free credit for 100% of its value, so there's a real monetary cost to slower delivery. Of course that doesn't mean that slower delivery can't be a benefit, but there will be a cutoff point where it starts to cost more than you save.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Assuming the goods aren't time-sensitive, then it's just a normal investment. You get a larger reward, but it happens further in the future. Perhaps investors could buy the goods (or make a loan) after they leave the shore, sell them when they get back, and pocket the difference.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Sort of. It's not that simple. You can't just compare the rewards. You also need to compare the time element, because it limits how many rewards you can get. For an illustration of how dramatic this can be, consider that a major factor of Apples success, for example, is that their inventory turnover has skyrocketed - to more than 60 times a year as of 2012, compared to ~36 times a year for Dell (inventory turnover was one of the things Dell used to be famous for) or about 15 times a year for RIM. In other words in 2012, for every $1m of capital locked up in in inventory at any one time, if Apple had 10% margin before considering capital costs for the inventory, they'd make $100k per turnover, for $6m, while RIM would have made $1.5m. That capital is not free - you're either facing borrowing costs or inability to invest it elsewhere. (of course the shipping is clearly not the only thing affecting inventory turnover) > Perhaps investors could buy the goods (or make a loan) after they leave the shore, sell them when they get back, and pocket the difference. Banks have had revolving credit facilities to handle this kind of thing pretty much as long as banks have existed. This changes the numbers but not the overall principle. To be clear: It is likely that there can be savings to make this way - I'm not disputing that. E.g. there's already at least one cargo ship that uses a kite to save fuel costs by relying on wind ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkySails ). Clearly that's one thing that might make it profitable to making smart decisions about routes that maximize fuel savings even if that may slow down the delivery. My point is just that it isn't sufficient to look at the savings for a single shipment - you also need to consider that the shipment will tie up substantial capital, and that has a cost per day too, whether in credit costs or in reduced ability to turn over inventory, and that will create very real limitations on how much you can slow down ships and still see benefits.

washedup 13y ago

My biggest question is how they plan on securing these ships. Pirates would likely see this as a huge opportunity.

splat 13y ago
Who would they take hostage?
- beagle90 13y ago
  This also. Without hostages the pirates are open to a world of hurt. Here's to hoping the Somalian pirates won't need to be as desperate by the time these ships set sail.
  - washedup 13y ago
    Without hostages, if they can override the piloting, they have a bunch of cargo with no lives attached.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      And with little reason for the local navy to not come in guns blazing.
beagle90 13y ago
This was my initial thought. Then I realised whatever sensors are on-board these things would likely detect incoming pirate attacks (of the physical kind) from miles away (think satellites). At which point nearby naval forces would be alerted. Hell, you could go a step further and equip each one with it's own drone to defend itself in case of attack.
- washedup 13y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if that's the goal!
- 13y ago

yread 13y ago

It would be cool technology and cut emissions (12 to 15% is not bad at all) but I don't want to be on a dismasted yacht doing ocean crossing in the middle of a storm with all the nearest vessels computer-controlled, without life-support systems, unable to help me

maxerickson 13y ago
Adventure yachtists are a small enough group maybe we can just not worry about them having to give up their dangerous activity. The activity is also esoteric enough that it would not be ridiculous to demand that the participants pay for their own safety net.
- dalke 13y ago
  Yachts aren't the only ships on the oceans which might need rescue. Consider a similar scenario with a fishing trawler stranded at sea instead of a yacht. It's possible to do a cost-benefit analysis, but it's not meaningful if it only takes into account adventure yachtists. What about fishing boats which have been hit by freighters (as in http://gcaptain.com/dutch-freighter-sinks-french-trawler/ http://gcaptain.com/dutch-freighter-sinks-french-trawler/ )? Do the owners of uncrewed freighters have no culpability or responsibility in helping contribute towards a safety net even though the freighter might be the cause of a problem? Freighters themselves also have problems at sea. Eg, http://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/68327/vietnamese-freighter-sinks-due-to-stormy-weather/ http://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/68327/vietnamese-freig... concerns a freighter where 18 of the crew were rescued by another freighter, the Pacific Skipper. Here's a case where a cargo ship hit a ferry - http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/18/world/asia/philippines-ships-collision/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/18/world/asia/philippines-shi... . The crew of the cargo ship, plus the navy, Coast Guard and other commercial vessels, worked to rescue some of the passengers. If commercial vessels were uncrewed then that's fewer ships that could have helped.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    > If commercial vessels were uncrewed then that's fewer ships that could have helped. It's also vastly fewer ships that could end up in trouble with crews that will need to be rescued.

dzhiurgis 13y ago

> Cameras and sensors can already detect obstacles in the water better than the human eye. I wish that was available on consumer sailing boats. There are lots of hazards for small vessels out there. And to be honest, lately big ships are one of them. No crew is actually watching anything other, but the radar & AIS, hence small boats can be destroyed and never found again. As per piloting - the first crude autopilots were made in 1970s...

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

I think the major problem is that piracy has always, till now, had someone to "repel boarders". Now it is a matter of climbing on board and breaking the locks. (And no I don't think automated guns will be an acceptable solution. I can't see the NY port Authotirty being happy about armed computers sliding into view. (Why am I thinking of the Matrix cartoon / prequels now?)

DaveLond 13y ago
Assuming you get boarded by pirates, what happens next? Why would you need a bridge that could command the ship? Even if you did, turn it off unless you can remotely switch it on again. How much damage can pirates do to an empty ship? Plus, no hostages, so there wouldn't be much stopping armed forces going in guns-blazing.
- matznerd 13y ago
  Disable the ships communications with jamming device. Tow it to port, hold ransom for % of cargo, or sell cargo in the local market.
  - baddox 13y ago
    Still sounds better than doing the same thing, but with a crew on board.
  - emgeee 13y ago
    Is "towing it to port" really something that is that easy to do? These are big ships that are probably not easy to make disappear. Also, without hostages, using armed forces to take the ship back would probably be a lot easier. Finally, depending on the cargo and location, I would imagine selling off the cargo would be a simple matter.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > These are big ships that are probably not easy to make disappear. The ship itself is often the drop location for ransoms; piracy doesn't generally require hiding the ship. > Also, without hostages, using armed forces to take the ship back would probably be a lot easier. This is a significant point.

dkoch 13y ago

I don't know anything about shipping, but I wonder how much of the crews' time is spent in maintenance and repairs. Are they trained to fix common issues? What happens when the robot boats break down? Or are they just there to fill minimum crew size regulations and babysit ships that mostly drive themselves anyways?

gk1 13y ago
Speaking as a former ship engineer (and designer), the engineering crew is mostly there to operate and monitor the plant. This is done from a computer. Almost everything in a modern engine space is automated or can be operated remotely from the engineering control station (the aforementioned computer). That includes opening and closing valves, starting up and shutting down systems, troubleshooting, and so on. Unfortunately some times the sensors or actuators break, so an engineer will have to do some manual work. I suspect older engineers are more likely to do this, because they still think their own intuition is better than some algorithm (case in point: see quote in article from the union representative). As for maintenance, it gets done in port. There are times, however, when things break horribly, and the engineers have to fix it themselves while at sea or find a work-around. With a drone fleet, one way to deal with this may be to have engineering teams on stand-by, ready to helo to a broken drone ship and do repairs.
- alexhawdon 13y ago
  > one way to deal with this may be to have engineering teams on stand-by, ready to helo to a broken drone ship and do repairs. If the ships travelled in groups of 3+ then in the event of a failure the other two ships could tow the failed ship? Is this feasible? I honestly have no idea.
  - gk1 13y ago
    Not with current ship designs. It takes an enormous amount of power to tow a loaded cargo ship. They're built with some power redundancy, but not enough extra to tow another loaded ship.
  - 13y ago

drawkbox 13y ago

This could also provide more information about the oceans being totally automated. They would need to map the ocean (and problems) more closely to navigate. I just hope they can still find and pickup Tom Hanks and Wilson.

lutusp 13y ago

This idea fails a basic reality check -- piracy. During my around-the-world solo sail (http://arachnoid.com/sailbook http://arachnoid.com/sailbook) I heard any number of accounts of cargo vessels being boarded by pirates late at night, to steal cargo and slip away undetected by the skeleton crew that shipping operators prefer. The idea of a robot vessel would only make this problem worse. The article says, "Unmanned ships would also reduce risks such as piracy, since there would be no hostages to capture ..." But much piracy, for example in the eastern Indian Ocean, is after cargo, not hostages. Pirates could disable the propulsion system of, then loot, a robot cargo ship in the far reaches of the Indian Ocean where governmental controls are much weaker than elsewhere.

gk1 13y ago
I think that's a solvable problem. As quoted in the article, just make the trouble of stealing cargo more hassle than it's worth. I'm not saying it'd be easy, but it's not the showstopper you make it out to be.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > As quoted in the article, just make the trouble of stealing cargo more hassle than it's worth. If that were feasible, shipping companies would have done it already. As to piracy, a robot ship represents an added risk, not a reduced one. Just look at Internet crime and compare it with old-style bank robberies to see my point -- those who robbed Mt. Gox didn't have to risk a face-to-face confrontation with an armed guard. It's the same here. > I'm not saying it'd be easy, but it's not the showstopper you make it out to be. I'll bet that's what the backers of Bitcoin said -- until a week ago.
  - baddox 13y ago
    Has the Bitcoin show been stopped? I've been following the Bitcoin community fairly closely, and I must have missed it.
    - lutusp 13y ago

matznerd 13y ago

Also forgot to mention, this autonomous drone just finished sailing from California to Hawaii -> http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/02/saildrone/ http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/02/saildrone/

robomartin 13y ago

12 to 15 percent more efficient because you eliminate people? And where is the part where a miricle occurs and the laws of physics are modified? The efficiency and pollution problem with cargo ships can't be fixed with more crgo ships. That's just insane. Build a dedicated high-speed nuclear, wind and solar powered high speed cargo train connecting the US coasts and the gulf. This alone would eliminate some ten thousand cargo ships per year making the trek through the Panama Canal. During this trek they burn over a million dollars of bunker fuel, the nastiest most polluting fuel you can burn. Methinks this is just one of those "let's burn government money 'cause they don't know any better" scams. Not the first time.

matteotom 13y ago
Did you even read the article? "By replacing the bridge -- along with the other systems that support the crew, such as electricity, air conditioning, water and sewage..." It's not just eliminating people. It's eliminating the whole bridge, and adding more cargo. And the 12 to 15 percent number might be a "fuel per unit of cargo" number, not necessarily "total fuel per boat". "Build a dedicated high-speed nuclear, wind and solar powered high speed cargo train connecting the US coasts and the gulf" Who do you propose pays for this, the government which "don't now any better"? Private companies? If this was actually cheaper than burning a million dollars of fuel, they would have done it already. And I doubt trains could carry nearly as much cargo as a large cargo ship.
- robomartin 13y ago
  > Did you even read the article? Of course I did. And I am disputing these numbers. The Maersk triple e class cargo ships can carry 18,000 containers. There is no way removing crew quarters will make room for another 1,800. For one thing, even an autonomous ship must have the ability to be crewed from onboard due to safety/emergency considerations. It's a pipe dream, a stunt, just like Amazon delivering packages in a busy city using drones. The hydrodynamic drag of these ships by far overwhelms the cost equation. The only way you are going to save 10% is by slowing down. And you can do that just fine with a crew. In fact, this is precisely what they do to control costs. I did extensive research on this topic about three years ago. If I remember correctly, the trip from Shaghai to Europe through the Suez canal takes approximately 32 days. When fuel costs spiked cargo ships slowed down to make the same trip in sixty days in order to control costs. I could be wrong, of course. Based on what i know I just don't see how automation could make such an impact. The 800 pound gorilla isn't the crew quarters, it's physics.

bbosh 13y ago

When each shipment nets maybe $30,000,000 for the shipping company and you pay about £20,000 for the crew during that time, you'd need to save a lot of money elsewhere to make this worthwhile.

RKoutnik 13y ago
FYI: £20,000 === $33,390.
the_french 13y ago
You're forgetting costs associated with crew beyond pay. You also have to pay for food, insurance etc.. there's the risk of hostages being taken. Additionally, removing the bridge/crew quarters makes for more space to put containers, the ships could end up looking like barges with the entire top surface covered in containers.
Groxx 13y ago
I'm not sure that's accurate. The article mentions this: >Crew costs of $3,299 a day account for about 44 percent of total operating expenses for a large container ship, according to Moore Stephens LLP, an industry accountant and consultant. That would be what, 10 days at sea? Are they really that fast? Even if so, where does 44% come from?
- dalke 13y ago
  Here's the chart you probably want: http://www.hsh-nordbank.com/media/en/pdf/kundenbereiche/schifffahrt/research/betriebskosten_studie09/Kurzfassung_Betriebskostenstudie2009.pdf http://www.hsh-nordbank.com/media/en/pdf/kundenbereiche/schi... It lists a median cost of US$3,712/day for manning costs, with a total operating cost of $8,138/day => 45.6% .

wil421 13y ago

What happens when Pirates bored an unmanned ship? Negativity aside, this looks like the future I hope that consumer grade cars/transportation will eventually have this. I can imagine a highway of the future with a lane for autonomous vehicles instead of truck drivers. Heck most airplanes fly themselves.

PeterisP 13y ago
What happens when armed pirates board a manned ship? The crew is unarmed and is supposed to lock themselves in a secure room, which is exactly the same as a computer would do. The unmanned option is better in case of piracy, since due to lack of hostages there is less pressure for ransom and it's safer to re-capture the ship before it can be delivered to a pirate friendly port. The real vulnerability of unmanned ship is against small-scale theft (a rubber dinghy boarding, opening a container and stealing a few TVs), but for large cargo ships thieves can do the same without the crew noticing; so it can be covered by insurance probably.
- wil421 13y ago
  Right, but I was thinking about the damage they could do or what happens if they shut the engines off. Who will come and get the ship and how long will that take. Help could be days away how much could be stolen in that time. I believe the pirates are in it for the insurance money for the hostages anyway I doubt they want to fence any actual goods.
danmatan 13y ago
I can imagine a previously smooth road now in around-the-clock gridlock with pedestrians jay-walking with impunity.
- eru 13y ago
  And that would be a good thing!

LeChuck 13y ago

I would like to see some redundancy in navigational equipment before this becomes a reality. Currently ships only have traditional navigation methods to fall back on if satellite navigation fails. While there are some projects underway to find a seamless replacement for GNSS [1], none are quite there yet. [1] http://www.e-navigation.net/index.php?page=resilient-pnt-from-pnt-unit-concept-to-first-realization http://www.e-navigation.net/index.php?page=resilient-pnt-fro...

Zigurd 13y ago

I'm surprised at all the "piracy" objections. With no human operable "helm" there is no way to divert the ship, short of posessing an engine more powerful than the ship's engine, and no crew to hold hostage. Potentially some containers could be opened and looted, but the practical amount of looting is a fraction of one container. The real objections should be about failure modes of ships and what a crew can to to mitigate them. But even this angle is susceptible to the possibility that the safest crew and ship is an un-crewed ship. If you are not on the ship, you can't cause an accident, and you won't die in an accident.

jjoonathan 13y ago
> With no human operable "helm" there is no way to divert the ship, short of posessing an engine more powerful than the ship's engine Because engines are impossible to disable, GPS is impossible to spoof, and control systems are impossible to hack even with unlimited physical access. > no crew to hold hostage There's a fancy robotic ship and a bunch of cargo to hold hostage. > the practical amount of looting is a fraction of one container How do you reckon? I suppose if the value-density of the cargo were low enough then nobody would have incentive to steal it, so they would have to threaten to destroy it instead. > The real objections should be about failure modes of ships and what a crew can to to mitigate them. You're absolutely right. But piracy is one of those failure modes.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  There are low hundreds of attempts and a few dozen successful ship hijackings per year. It is, overall, a very small part of freight theft, the vast majority of which happens on land. This should be obvious: on land, you don't need a boat big enough to float a container to steal a container. You just need a access to a semi-tractor and maybe a trailer. If you make the technical demands on a successful hijacking higher, I expect these numbers to fall. I also expect self-driving trucks to sharply cut theft, rather than enable it.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    Can you elaborate why you believe self-driving trucks would reduce theft? They feel like the easiest thing to rob on any low-traffic road - you need two people in masks, one walks in the middle of the road in front of the truck so it stops in order to avoid "traffic accident", the second one takes whatever he wants from the back, and both leave through a side path too narrow for the truck to follow. Even if you get a cop car there within 10 minutes, all you've got is a video without faces.

cratermoon 13y ago

How would they be necessarily faster and less polluting? Sure, waste from crew activities is part of the output, but most of it could be recycled or composted. The big source of pollution is the diesel engines, and those wouldn't change much. And faster? Whatever weight savings came from removing crew accommodations would just be used to fit more TEUs for the trip.

winslow 13y ago
I had the same question. I suppose they might be referring to newer technology to limit emissions and maybe bio-diesel? Other than that I don't see why removing the crew would be less polluting. Edit: According to the quote [1], it seems like the engines wouldn't necessarily be more efficient but rather more cargo per ship increasing the shipment to fuel ratio. Somewhat similar to CSX's fuel saving slogan "Trains can move a ton of freight nearly 450 miles on a single gallon of fuel." [2]. [1] - "By replacing the bridge -- along with the other systems that support the crew, such as electricity, air conditioning, water and sewage -- with more cargo, ships can cut costs and boost revenue, Levander said. The ships would be 5 percent lighter before loading cargo and would burn 12 percent to 15 percent less fuel, he said." [2] - http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-csx/projects-and-partnerships/fuel-efficiency/ http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-csx/projects-and-partners...
- cratermoon 13y ago
  > The ships would be 5 percent lighter before loading cargo and would burn 12 percent to 15 percent less fuel, he said. And what's to say the amount of cargo carried wouldn't simply be increased by 5 percent or so, offsetting any gains?
  - winslow 13y ago
    They aren't necessarily worried about the cargo simply offsetting the weight. It's the fact that the space previously used for the bridge and human living area is used for cargo instead. Ultimately this would increase the shipment to fuel ratio per cargo ship.

notahacker 13y ago

I suspect the bigger problem is that ultra reliable ships with state-of-the art communications and robotics will seldom be cheaper than a creaky old tub manned by Filipino sailors, especially Filipino sailors willing to accept non-unionized wages.

jevinskie 13y ago
I thought so as well but the article stated that 44% of costs go towards the crew and their supplies.
eru 13y ago
The Philippines won't stay poor forever.

shubb 13y ago

This is what an undisrupted industry sounds like. You hear it from train driver unions, banks, and doctors. There is merit in what they say about safety, but they see it not as a set of problems that might be overcome, but as a way of shutting down the conversation. They don't want to think about how easily a significant part of what they do could be automated or eliminated. The heuristic is not that they object, it is that they don't want to discuss, even as speculation. It's interesting that one place these objections haven't come up is air travel. Because if you think about it, air travel should be a place we fear to automated, but we already did it. Autopilot sort of sneaked in before people realized what automation was, and pilots are comfortable that they still have a place alongside the machines, so they are happy to talk, and explain as slowly as necessary that automated landing might be a good idea one day, but automating a crash landing wouldn't work out well. The way this usually seems to work out is, everyone says it's impossible, until someone does it, and eats the other players alive. The most interesting thing here is that the insurers are the barrier. When drone designs are up and running, there will be a niche for an insurer that will take the risk, and in these days of crowd funding, you wouldn't need to be an entrenched player to take it.

Houshalter 13y ago
It's not just the insurers but regulations. Although I wonder how much they can skirt around that, for example hiring a bunch of low wage unskilled workers to just sit on the ship doing nothing so it counts as "manned". Perhaps you could have the ship be remote controlled rather than completely autonomous. When something unexpected happened, a person takes over remotely, but otherwise it acts like autopilot. Perhaps the boats could transfer cargo to and from manned boats in international waters to get around local regulations, or even just bring people on board the ship.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  If they get a single insurer and a single tiny maritime nation onboard, then they can do everything easily. "Flags of convenience" work just fine for circumventing inconveniences.
dalke 13y ago

pinaceae 13y ago

i love how everyone here latches onto bad pirates boarding a drone. why would a drone ship have any human navigable rigging? drones do not have cockpits, life support systems, etc. a drone ship would have cargo containers all around, no bridge, no control room, etc. how do you board something that has no surface meant for humans?

analog31 13y ago
Drone helicopters.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dalke 13y ago
Those containers were attached to the deck or other containers, and inspected. That requires humans to have access to the containers to lash them down, at least for those which reach above the deck. This requires a surface meant for humans.

gfodor 13y ago

If only Rolls Royce had posted this idea to Hacker News first, they could have abandoned it after reading all the insightful comments about piracy.