Rolls-Royce Eyes Autonomous Ships, Expects Remote-Controlled Cargo Ships By 2020 (pcmag.com) 147
An anonymous reader writes from a report via PC Magazine: Speaking at a recent symposium in Amsterdam, Rolls-Royce vice president of innovation for marine, Oskar Levander, said, "The technologies needed to make remote and autonomous ships a reality exist." In partnership with the Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications Initiative (AAWA) project, Rolls-Royce, DNV GL, Inmarsat, Deltamarin, NAPA, Brighthouse Intelligence, Finferries, and ESL Shipping are leading the $7 million effort. Unmanned ships could save money, weight, and space, making way for more cargo and improving reliability and productivity, the AAWA said in a recent white paper. "The increased level of safety onboard will be provided by additional systems," Rolls-Royce said on its website. "Our future solutions will reduce need for human-machine interaction by automating selected tasks and processes, whilst keeping the human at the center of critical decision making and onboard expertise." Initial testing of sensor arrays in a range of operating and climatic conditions is already underway in Finland. Phase II of the project will continue through the end of 2017. Rolls-Royce plans to launch the first remote-controlled cargo ships by 2020, with autonomous boats in the water within the next two decades. Rolls-Royce was in the news last week when they unveiled their first driverless vehicle called The Vision Next 100.
I can see how this might be useful... (Score:3)
Remote controlled/autonomous ships near the Horn of Africa...
Fine, the pirates board, but they can't commandeer the ship, it's still going where the shipping company wants it.
Of course, that only lasts until someone breaks the remote control protocol and sells it to the pirates.
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Or the pirates find a way to cut the data link (likely just need to due some rain fade / knock the dish out of alignment).
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Or the pirates find a way to cut the data link (likely just need to due some rain fade / knock the dish out of alignment).
or the pirates hack into the system and sit there in china or russia and steer the ships into their dock in somalia.
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Re:I can see how this might be useful... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a bit like setting booby traps in your home to nail burglars:
Two big differences: booby traps often get unintended targets. the drones or gas here would happen only after a human verifies they are real pirates on board, and not just stowaways. Secondly, the law for piracy on the high seas has always been very different to burglary. You don't hang burglars. But lethal force against pirates is fine by me. Its not like you can sent the village constable around to question them.
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The response to piracy was entirely pusillanimous.
Shipping companies should have been allowed armed guards, you might have even called them "marines" and if fired upon by a pirate ship they should have been allowed to return fire. Even in Somalia, piracy would have been filed away as a bad idea and would have come to an end before it became a thing.
Any oceangoing ship in calm enough waters to board from a small boat is a stable enough platform to fire .50 BMG rounds from and .50 BMG rounds have enough dist
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Shipping companies did employ armed security that did indeed fire on pirates when the Somali problem was at its peak. You can find video on the web.
The big problem is the weapons you're carrying have to be legal in both the country you're shipping from and the country you're shipping to. Since so much of it was destined for Europe, where almost every weapon is illegal, your options are limited. Most of the security companies operating in that region had their own boats to move guards - they would board
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Shipping companies did employ armed security that did indeed fire on pirates when the Somali problem was at its peak. You can find video on the web.
The big problem is the weapons you're carrying have to be legal in both the country you're shipping from and the country you're shipping to. Since so much of it was destined for Europe, where almost every weapon is illegal, your options are limited. Most of the security companies operating in that region had their own boats to move guards - they would board with their weapons in international waters and debark with their weapons in international waters.
They solved that problem by just throwing the weapons overboard. Half a dozen AR-15s, a couple rifles in .308 or 30-06 and 1k rounds for each is two day's pay for the guys doing security. A trivial extra cost.
Anyway, this is a self-inflicted problem. Africans are going to do that stuff. Letting it continue caused it to continue. Had they shot at the first dozen attempts there wouldn't be a problem at all.
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You are amazingly naive.
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Shipping companies did employ armed security that did indeed fire on pirates when the Somali problem was at its peak. You can find video on the web.
The big problem is the weapons you're carrying have to be legal in both the country you're shipping from and the country you're shipping to. Since so much of it was destined for Europe, where almost every weapon is illegal, your options are limited. Most of the security companies operating in that region had their own boats to move guards - they would board with their weapons in international waters and debark with their weapons in international waters.
They solved that problem by just throwing the weapons overboard. Half a dozen AR-15s, a couple rifles in .308 or 30-06 and 1k rounds for each is two day's pay for the guys doing security. A trivial extra cost.
Anyway, this is a self-inflicted problem. Africans are going to do that stuff. Letting it continue caused it to continue. Had they shot at the first dozen attempts there wouldn't be a problem at all.
alternately, if the big factory fishing fleets hadn't overfished the waters off somalia which had been the foundation of the region's economy for hundreds of years, thereby forcing the seagoing population into other lines of work there wouldn't be a problem either.
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Commonly that's not seen as a good way. In such situation, the use of deadly force is deemed acceptable in defence of the crew IIRC (and even then often not used, for fear of escalation). But if there is no crew... This is a bit like setting booby traps in your home to nail burglars: if the trap actuall injures or kills the burglar, you're off to jail according to the law in a good many countries.
I would imagine a totally autonomous ship could have all internal spaces kept flooded with nitrogen or carbon dioxide as a fire suppression measure. No need for poison or anything malicious, when anyone that goes in without proper gear suffocates.
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I doubt that the customers would want poison gas seeping into their products during shipping, even if Loyd's was up for the idea; but it wouldn't be a complete surprise to hear of an unmanned bulk carrier of some sort being flushed with dry nitrogen as a preservative; and some idiots encountering inert gas asphyxiation.
if leonardo and kate can have sex in some guy's car on the Titanic, i don't see why filling it with nitrogen would be an objectionable alternative.
Not quite legal, because pirate crews are coerced (Score:2)
For centuries, pirates were considered hostis humani generis, enemies of the human race, and any ship could arrest pirates on the high seas, try them, and execute them. A trial was required (if at all possible) because pirate ships often included people who were kidnapped or otherwise coerced to join the crew. Still today, on the high seas any nation may arrest and try pirates, but certain human rights protections have been added by treaty.
International piracy law in general refers to piracy on the high se
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For centuries, pirates were considered hostis humani generis, enemies of the human race, and any ship could arrest pirates on the high seas, try them, and execute them. A trial was required (if at all possible) because pirate ships often included people who were kidnapped or otherwise coerced to join the crew. Still today, on the high seas any nation may arrest and try pirates, but certain human rights protections have been added by treaty.
International piracy law in general refers to piracy on the high seas (international waters). Most modern piracy occurs in territorial waters, though. In territorial waters, the nation who controls that territoy has jurisdiction and has the option to authorize any action. An exception is Somalia, which has a bad problem with piracy. Treaties allow signatory nations to take "all necessary measures that are appropriate in Somalia for the purpose of suppressing acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea". "All necessary measures" is generally thought to mean that unless lethal force is NECESSARY, it's not allowed. However, pirates shoot at people trying to arrest them, so lethal force is often necessary.
"The violent crime rate related to fishing boats is easily 20 times that of crimes involving tankers, cargo ships or passenger ships, said Charles N. Dragonette, who tracked seafaring attacks globally for the United States Office of Naval Intelligence until 2012. “So long as the victims were Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Filipino, just not European or American, the story never resonated,” he said.
Prosecutions for crimes at sea are rare — one former United States Coast Guard official put
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Isn't it a good way to get killed by drones or poisonous gas or something like that if 100% of the people on board are certifiable bad guys?
cover the entire ship inside and out with something emitting hard radiation when it leaves port. not sure how to unload it when it gets where it's going though
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Unfolding gripping scene of piracy (Score:3)
Robot 765432 : *Oh no you have captured Robot 4858743. I must do as you command"
Pirate "Ah Ha Ha!"
Robot 765432 "JK we have a thousand more just like him back at the factory. BT We are now pumping toxic gas through the the vents, hope you didn't need air or anything squishbag. HA HA HA*
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It's not known how the grinning pirates 160 kilometers off the coast of the Horn of Africa reacted as they suddenly were hit by the LRAD. But they were close, and the closer one is to the sonic cannon, the worse the effect is. It's possible they received permanent hearing damage, but at the very least they experienced an excruciating headache and ear pain to the point that they could no longer see or hear. They also quickly lost the desire to board the ship. Of course, even Captain Blackbeard would have quickly set sail when confronted with 150 decibels of pure noise.
Excruciating headache and permanent hearing damage? That's so humane. Plus it's only a matter of time before they figure out how to defeat the system. Then where are you?
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Possible hearing damage is a lot better than them being killed. You are really bad at this "being a human" thing. To you, humanity seems a weakness.
farming instead of hunting & gatheringing (Score:3)
Maybe by teaching them to properly manage their own home fisheries.
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Maybe by teaching them to properly manage their own home fisheries.
You have triggered a pet peeve of mine. It's not a matter of teaching or learning to properly manage a fishery. It's a matter of having a system in place that enforces a sustainable approach. No amount of learning can compensate for a tragedy of the commons situation.
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but if the problem is indeed foreigners coming in and fishing all the places dry, this isn't a tragedy of the commons situation
To the contrary, this is exactly a tragedy of the commons situation when nomadic outsiders can overgraze on the commons in question and move on when the resources in question are exhausted.
Re:I can see how this might be useful... (Score:5, Informative)
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I was thinking of the far more logical. If automated ships are possible, then why do current vessels not sail with just four crew members. Four pilots to steer the vessel, each taking a shift and one spare. Apparently a whole lot of maintenance needs to be carried out to keep those vessels going. Think of the profound stupid of Rolls Royce managements, seriously profound stupid. You have a multi-million dollar automated vessel, that needs maintenance, so what do you do, you stop it idle in port, doing fuck
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Think of the profound stupid of Rolls Royce managements, seriously profound stupid
Perhaps the thinking is automated bots to repair the automated bots, automated bots to repair those bots and so on. "Automated bots all the way down." ;)
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Arr (Score:2)
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IDK, the crew of ships these days doesn't have that much capabilities to fend off pirates anyway. So I doubt much will change, except that pirates won't be able to kidnap humans, only non-living stuff.
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I would love your thoughts on making a practical intermodal container ship which is fully sealed to the outside.
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Are you unfamiliar with the notion of a bank vault?
Not one that floats and is somehow impervious to attacks by well-equipped, roving gangs of pirates, no.
I've also never seen a bank vault with an engine that could be broken or damaged, either, or one that could be towed to a location where it could be plundered at leisure.
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Its unmanned. Vhy would it need to float?
now we're talking. undersea railroads. nuclear powered and unmanned.
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Have you seen how they stack containers? It's handwaving to say "things would just go inside the hull".
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you know that an enclosed ship IS a faraday cage right? its why the antennae's are on the outside of the hull. for an enclosed ship all they'd have to do is disconnect the antenna.
a foot thick? for a vessel 1000' long, 250' wide, and a few hundred tall?
congratulations, you just more than doubled the weight of the ship.
that's that many fewer containers it can now carry.
and again: have fun unloading 14,000 containers from your idiot design theory. there's a reason the top is open. you have twenty rows of cont
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An antenna does not have to be very large, and may be positioned in a location that is not physically accessible unless the vessel is docked.
Sure... many large ships have hulls that thick.
Or you have the contain
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You're talking out of your ass now.
Oil tankers are on the order of 1" thick (per hull)
Armorer hulls never have approached 12" thick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
and you CONTINUE to ignore loading and unloading.
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To be pedantic, battleships have had 12" armor (the thickest naval armor I'm aware of was about two feet of armor on the front of the main turrets on the Japanese battleships Yamato and Musashi), but not hulls. Instead of building up the hull, it was considered more worthwhile to attach expensive and specially-made armor plates.
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Not only did I never claim battleships and their ilk had 1" thick hulls, you're confusing the concept of hull thickness with armor belt thickness.
Unless you can learn to read this is the end.
Container ships, which is what we are talking about, do not and never have had anything within an order of magnitude of 12" hulls, despite your claims.
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1 - NOBODY HAS EVER HAD 12" THICK HULLS DESPITE YOUR CLAIM
2 - YOUR "VAULT" CONCEPT OF A CARGO SHIP IGNORES HOW CARGO SHIPS ARE LOADED AND UNLOADED.
3 - YOUR "SACRIFICE CARGO CAPACITY FOR ARMOR PLATING" CONCEPT IGNORES THE ECONOMICS OF THE FREIGHT INDUSTRY. THE NAME OF THE GAME IS VOLUME AND A SHIP WHICH CAN'T DELIVER THAT IS NOT PROFITABLE TODAY, AND A 15 MEMBER CREW ISN'T THE REASON.
"Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque i
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4 - YOU SEEM TO BE UNDER THE FALSE BELIEF THAT STOLEN CARGO IS HOW PIRATES MAKE MONEY.
and like all the other concepts, you are mistaken, over and over and over, and over, and over.
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1. The Iowa class battleship has a foot thick armor on the hull. WW2 ships used armor that was sometimes even thicker. Washington class had 16 inch armor for instance.
2. cargo ships conventionally have to have accommodations for people. The entire ship, other than the engine room(s), could be one big vault, with the entire top being a doorway to allow access to the interior, much like the old space shuttle. It would be no more difficult to load or unload than existing cargo ships.
3. Presumably, the
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ARMOR BELT != HULL.
REGARDLESS YOU CLAIMED SUCH HULLS ARE COMMON, THEY DON'T EXIST, MUCH LESS COMMONLY. STOP TRYING TO BACKTRACK. HOW MUCH DID YOU PAY FOR THAT UID?
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I find it bizarre that so many people want to angrily rail on my remarks, but nobody reaily criticized the person who suggested that piracy might even somehow be a problem int the first place.
But hey.... if you want to continue to waste your 0x40-0x5f ascii characters on arguing with me, I won't stop you.
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you confuse my beat-the-ignorant-over-the-head caps with anger.
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This is what a container ship looks like without containers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
They already do have a minimum of decking several stories below the top of the gunwale, with a minimum amount of hull and bulkheads needed for structural integrity to carry the load of containers stacked some 10-20 tall.
what?
did you think the containers you can see above the gunwale were the only ones, just sitting on top of a deck, and the interior was empty?
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please stop posting until you learn what you are talking about.
it is clear you know nothing about ships, container ships, or anything resembling practical design.
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here.
educate thyself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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If it is unmanned. It would not even neeed to have a "deck"
" I hereby christen this ship the SS Deckless Wonder"
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The whole ship doesn't need to be sealed; just the control spaces and circuit runs to the engine, rudder actuator, and so on. Said spaces could even be permanently flooded while underway with halon or nitrogen or CO2 to, you know, cut down on the risk of fire. And even then, the seals and/or gas don't have to hold out forever, just long enough to rendezvous with whatever naval warship is operating in that zone.
1) Pirates board.
2) Remote operator notifies the navy, is instructed to send the ship to whate
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Killing pirates has been one of the primary duties of navies pretty much since there's been such a thing as navies. It's kind of in the job description.
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Killing pirates has been one of the primary duties of navies pretty much since there's been such a thing as navies. It's kind of in the job description.
that's why i purchase my music from Itunes.
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First, each container must be airtight and watertight (appropriate gaskets, etc.) to at least 200 feet, and locked using an electronic lock with no external access other than by plugging in a special controller that powers up the lock and uses RSA or EC crypto to authenticate itself to the lock controller. Second, to protect itself against pirates, the interior of the ship must be airtight and watertight to several thousand feet of pressure, and must have appropriate pumps and chambers such that when attac
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I sure do hope dgatwood's reply was a sarcastic one, demonstrating my point.
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The question wasn't whether anybody would be willing to do it, but rather whether it was practical to create. If your definition of practical has to extend to whether it would be practical to replace all shipping boxes in the world, then clearly the answer is "no", but that woul
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submersible ships are just as stupid as the "bank vault" idea.
too much added weight, added complexity, no real gain.
you also make loading/unloading an inefficient nightmare compared to the current system of gantries and cranes.
really though, the entire idea of entirely unmanned cargo ships is foolish anyway. they are already highly automated with the crew only there for emergencies and tasks that cannot be automated. it's why they already operate with typical crews (note difference from max crew) of 4-15 pe
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submersible ships are just as stupid as the "bank vault" idea.
too much added weight, added complexity, no real gain. you also make loading/unloading an inefficient nightmare compared to the current system of gantries and cranes.
really though, the entire idea of entirely unmanned cargo ships is foolish anyway. they are already highly automated with the crew only there for emergencies and tasks that cannot be automated. it's why they already operate with typical crews (note difference from max crew) of 4-15 people depending on ship size/type.
the place the real unmanned advances are being made is at the loading/unloading area, with the gantries also being more and more automated. with computer databases and preplanning of loading so that multiple container shipments are stacked together in order of delivery and location (rather than being spread out randomly among the 14,000+ containers, at different locations and depths within the stacks on ship) it's all very close to maximum efficiency.
all cargo will be carried on automated or semiautomated ships which will also serve as cruise ships which are only chartered by NRA tour groups.
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You are apparently using a new definition of "practical" that I was previously unaware of. "Practical" typically means something that can be put into practice without excessive costs of any sort. It means something an expert in the field would consider as an actual possibility. Your idea of redoing all the containers in the world and making all the container ships in the world submersible is exceedingly impractical.
The reason it wouldn't happen is that there are much cheaper and more reliable ways of
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CONTAINER ship (Score:2)
This means that on arrival at a dockyard the cranes there will need easy access, which is not consistent with a ship inaccessible at sea.
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I would love your thoughts on making a practical intermodal container ship which is fully sealed to the outside.
inertia drive. (not a real thing)
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You mean a ship which is incapable of carrying 1/10th of the containers that a modern ship does? A ship which is therefore economically nonviable? (But sure does make for a pretty press package!)
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Yeah... that's gonna suck for legitimate maintenance.
Thats all great (Score:2)
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I hope the oil ones are forced to have a maned crew on them.
$7,000,000 effort? (Score:2)
I rather suspect they've spent more on PR about the project than in R&D if that's all they're actually investment.
I wouldn't call that a "strong move" on their part, not by a longshot. What's that, .001% of their non-automotive, non-nuclear, market cap?
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I rather suspect they've spent more on PR about the project than in R&D if that's all they're actually investment.
I wouldn't call that a "strong move" on their part, not by a longshot. What's that, .001% of their non-automotive, non-nuclear, market cap?
RR R&D PR
Does this pass the smell test? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unmanned ships could save money, weight, and space...
Seriously? The crew and crew quarters take up a significant fraction of the operating budget, weight and volume of a modern cargo ship? I'm not buying it.
Take a look at some of these ships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship [wikipedia.org]
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That being said, the risk potential probably would be much more acceptable for a smaller scale of rivers and inland lakes, where a vessel would arguably be easier to salvage if there is an issue.
You have it entirely flipped, this is the exact opposite of reality and smaller rivers and inlets are the most dangerous places for a ship big enough to want automation. The river may look wide, but the channel in which bigger ships can actually travel inside a river is often very small due to depth constraints. A ship running aground in a channel can shut down commerce there for days, weeks, or months depending on the severity, and a collision can cause hundreds of millions in damage to fixed infrastructur
Battleship for Real (Score:2)
Never happen (Score:5, Informative)
40% of a ships maintencence needs are done at sea, while under way. They can shut down parts of the engine to do maintencence on the ocean.
An remote controlled ship would spend more time at dock than current models.
And that is why remote ships won't set sail. Not pirates or crew costs but time spent being repaired at sea saves too much money.
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Also, still have to maintain manual override for harbor pilots. The chances of LA or NY allowing an autonomous large ship down their difficult to navigate entryways and, channels, and turns is slim to none.
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more or less constant. talking about engines so large the mechanic can shut down specific cylinders and walk inside it, while the rest of the engine is still running. these machines are not maintenance free.
Auto Pilot is old news (Score:2)
What could go wrong (Score:2)
What could go wrong with having huge autonomous supertankers and cargo ship meandering about the ocean with no human guidance? Nothing, nothing could possibly go wrong.
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They're already on autopilot with GPS navigation most of the time anyway. I doubt anyone would notice if the crew stayed home.
True, but at least they can have a bridge watch to be sure they are safe. Iron Mike is a boon to sailors but given the consequences of a collision at sea you still need someone to be repaired to take control in the event something unexpected happens.
You are all idiots (Score:2)
Most of the comments are about pirates. Have you guys been living under a rock or what? Do you not know that the MPAA and RIAA have created all the technology required to defend against pirates?
GPS hijacking (Score:3)
Fly a drone onto a ship with a GPS jammer. Flip the coordinates around so that it thinks it's going to New York but is really going to Jamaica. The whole time it's transmitting the fake coordinates back to the control office where they think it's on schedule. By the time they realize it's not there, it's already been unloaded and the goods moved on.
Possible with a staffed ship now (Score:2)
How many ships will be checking their navigation against the stars or by any means other than GPS. Get it away from the area patrolled by navies and board without that hassle.
Great idea though...
Don't think so (Score:2)
Military Involved (Score:4, Interesting)
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Two different Rolls Royces (Score:2)
The driver-less Rolls was from Rolls Royce cars, which is just a BMW brand these days.
This announcement is from the Rolls Royce who make plane engines, submarine reactors, ship power plants and all sorts of other stuff but no cars.
Two different Rolls Royces (Score:2)
One is a German owned car company, the other a more general engineering company producing aeroplane engines and marine equipment, thus this report
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
v
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Now totally unrelated companies
I'm sorry, Abduwali ... (Score:2)
"I'm sorry, Abduwali, I'm afraid I can't do that. I am the captain now." (Hal; probably).
Hell.. combine this with a few of the robots from "Runaway" and "Screamers" you have defense _AND_ repair!
They better give that AI plenty of alcohol! (Score:2)
We wouldn't want another Juan Valdez dark matter spill! Just say No! to sober robots!
http://pixa.club/en/futurama/s... [pixa.club]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]