Autonomous Vehicles take to the Water
By: Joelle Bosia
The innovation of autonomous vehicles is also making strides in the water. More and more research is being done on bringing self-driving boats to fruition. At MIT’s Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers joined up with the Senseable City Lab in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) to design a fleet of autonomous boats. The boats were small scale with 4 by 2 meter, to begin with, and equipped with a multitude of sensors, microcontrollers, GPS modules, and other devices. With all of the technology on the boats, they can be programmed to self-assemble within the fleet to make floating bridges, stages, and platforms.
These boats designed by MIT are looking to take traffic from the streets to the water in cities in which waterways are significantly present. Some of these cities include Bangkok, Venice, and Amsterdam. The boats could deliver goods at night to minimize congestion in pathways without having a driver stay awake during the night to monitor.
Autonomous boats are also popping up in other locations besides populated areas. On August 26th, 2018, the first unmanned vessel completed its mission in crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Norwegian company Offshore Sensing created a small boat called Sailbuoy that could autonomously navigate the ocean. In the future, it is going to be used to transmit data about the ocean back to researchers. Some of the data includes: measuring ocean and atmospheric parameters, tracking oil spills, and being a communication relay station for instruments that are under the surface.
All in all, autonomous vehicles are not just going to be taking over roads in the next couple of years; there will also be autonomous vehicles in our waters.
