AI Captained Ship Crosses the Atlantic
World First: Mayflower Autonomous Ship's Transatlantic Crossing
UK to Nova Scotia With No Humans Onboard
In an historic world first, the new Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) this summer crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Plymouth, UK to Halifax, Nova Scotia captained solely by artificial intelligence. The journey marks the world's first, fully autonomous transatlantic voyage. This is a technological marvel by a robotic autonomous vessel 400 years after the Pilgrims set sail for America and established the Plymouth Colony. The planned destination was Plymouth, MA but the MAS encountered a defective generator starter charging circuit and anchored safety in Halifax for repairs, after completing a 3,500-mile, 40-day journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Its final destination will be Washington, DC.
MAS' Technologies
The 50-foot-long trimaran crossed the Atlantic with no humans on board. It is the creation of marine nonprofit ProMare, with the help and guidance of IBM which serves as the lead technology and science partner, as well as UK submersible company Submergence Group. The ship's key smart technologies are AI, cloud technologies, automation and Edge computing. Onboard, there are 6 AI powered cameras, more than 30 sensors and 15 Edge computing devices which provide actionable recommendations to the AI Captain to interpret data, analyze it and make real-time decisions. The AI Captain's decisions are totally transparent to allow humans to understand what contributed to the decisions. All of the technologies steer the ship on a course that is based on huge amounts of data.
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The ship has a solar-powered hybrid electric motor and a backup diesel generator that power it along its route at speeds up to 10 knots. Not only did MAS' journey make maritime technological history. It also conducted environmental testing in remote ocean areas to track the impact of global warming and pollution on maritime ecosystems. This is a high impact success story with widespread applications ranging from autonomous AI systems to more environmentally friendly research vessels. IBM says the information learned from the AI Captain and other technologies have applications across industries. MAS' journey across the tumultuous Atlantic was not all smooth sailing and has provided a great deal of new data for designing, building and operating AI Captained ships, which is part of the future of travel.
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