If you hear autonomous boat
and you don't have a lot of experience in it,
it sounds kind of like, a robot.
But it thinks, it does maneuvers that you would do yourself.
It's not science fiction, it looks like it's sometimes but,
this is here, this technology is here now.
And it can perceive things that humans can't.
Autonomy doesn't get tired. It's ready to be shown to the world.
It's exciting times.
We do a lot of our testing in the Boston Harbor.
Generally people are, are pretty curious for obvious reasons.
I mean, it's a big, yellow boat that says Autonomous Vessel on it.
The commercial vessels know who we are and
we're all very respectful of each other
and, it's actually an excellent place to work and a really great place for us to test.
So we're really lucky.
I love this weather.
It still blows my mind that I get paid to do this shit.
I'm Chris Sotzing, I'm the director of engineering
at Sea Machines.
I look after a team of hardware and software engineers to deliver the
next generation of autonomy to the maritime market.
Boats have a bigger impact on your life than you can probably appreciate.
Everything from shipping to harbor protection, transportation ferries,
all these industries have an affect on most people
more than they probably realize.
I think something like, 90 percent of goods are moved
across the world in vessels.
As trade grows and more and more goods are being moved,
and more and more vessels are being used to do that,
there are lots of opportunities to make that more efficient and predictable,
and that's where technology can really help.
It can optimize routes for these vessels, it can share information between them,
it can increase these vessel's ability to detect each other
and other static objects even to make sure that collisions are avoided.
This is STEADFAST, our unmanned surface vessel.
Some people have even called it a robot boat.
We just refer to it as an autonomous vessel.
I think autonomy is going to be transforming most industries
going forward and the maritime industry is no different.
An autonomous watercraft is much like an autonomous car
in that it can operate all by itself without a human in the loop.
The sensors that we're using on the autonomous system
are used on most boats already.
Radar and AIS, GPS, these are already installed.
Our system can be easily retrofit to new boats, old boats,
a 20 foot survey vessel or a 60 foot tug in all the same way.
It's using the same box with the same general inputs.
I think it surprises folks to find out
that autonomous vessels are actually here now.
This technology is not science fiction.
Looks like it sometimes, but it's actually ready to go.
I was a cadet on a 1,000 foot car carrier
that went to the Middle East and back.
If you ask me five-ten years ago, if I'd be working on the autonomous boat,
I would absolutely have said no.
I thought it was way more in the theory stages than it is
in the production stages.
So that was kind of a shock, a very positive shock, but, definitely
surprised me.
Yeah, we're going to be heading off with Marblehead and demonstrating some of our
autonomous technology and that's going to include some waypoint surveys,
we'll do some collision avoidance tests and then some formation sailing.
The missions we're about to do is a collision avoidance mission.
So essentially, will be in full autonomy and we will go
from point A to point B. I just dropped two waypoints
and it's a straight line so hopper is going to come in
and basically try to hit us.
We tried to do a straight away just so that hopper can easily
predict where we're going to be.
With this system, you're able to
create a bunch of missions. You can do it at the dock,
you could just do it at your desk.
The boat will be fully autonomous as soon as I click these buttons.
Okay. Standby, here we go.
The boat's fully autonomous right now, as you can see.
The hopper's coming in now so they're going to try to hit us.
The field is adjusting.
So we're actually taking its speed and it's heading into account.
You could feel us slowing down, waiting for it to go by.
As it goes by, you feel the speed pick up again.
And we'll continue on.
So the system is taking in the position of that vessel, it's detected it.
It's detected its speed and it's heading.
It's going to factor that into the decision-making algorithm.
I love that. I love that it kind of turns like that
to kind of avoid, like turning at the boat,
but avoiding it.
It's one of my favorite parts because we don't tell it to do that.
We don't say, "turn right."
It just calculates.
Like, what's the best place I can possibly position myself in.
This is just what I would do if I were driving.
Tell me that's not cool.
I will never get tired of that.
Applying collision avoidance is,
I mean, it's something that mariners do every day
they take into account the radar and the areas just like the boats doing.
It's just like one less thing that's completely in the hands of
the navigator.
I don't think it's meant to be a replacement of anybody.
I think it's more supplemental than anything.
It's just, it's increasing the safety and that's all there is to it.
The maritime industry is very slow to change.
I don't think that there's anyone afraid of actual autonomy,
but just change. I think that a lot of industries
kind of push back on change sometimes
but, it really is the logical next step.
It's already in cars, it's in farming, it's in so many things already that
it's just getting over that bridge that it's still really new.
But once that happens I don't think that anyone is going to think
that it's negatively impacting anything.
All right hopper, go ahead, we're ready whenever you are.
All right we're on our way.
So we've specified an offset to the mothership, hopper in this case.
This is a fully autonomous behavior but, where we go is really up to
where the mothership goes, we'll just follow at that offset.
So right now they're making a turn to port.
So our offset position is going to be moving with that and we're going to be
following it around. You'll feel it speed up a little bit
as it makes that turn.
But we're always going to be trying to keep the vessel exactly in that
position specified by the offset.
This could be applicable to like, an oil spill response.
So you would have one mothership boat and then an autonomous boat
they could stay the same distance off each other
and they could drag an oil boom and clean up the spill.
You wouldn't need to stop as much, you wouldn't need to
switch crews and it would be a lot more efficient and productive.
I think it's going to be a huge game changer.
AI can optimize efficiency in a vessel by taking in all sorts of information
from the environment; currents winds, weather forecast
in the future and optimize that vessel's path to ensure that minimal amount
of energy is being used to get the vessel from point A to point B.
So as autonomy starts to make operations more efficient
that's going to decrease costs for the operator.
If they're running a little bit more green than that's going to decrease fuel costs.
And that's effectively going to start to decrease costs for the consumers.
So, there you go, your Nike's are cheaper because autonomy has made that shift
more efficient to operation.
The next big steps are going to be just advancing the level of autonomy.
Making it so that the system is more and more able to run
without humans in the loop.
Imagine an intersection with cars that doesn't have a stoplight,
and the cars can just go through at full speed.
If the vessels know enough about each other that's absolutely possible.
The more you know about the environment, the more you can react to it,
and the more advanced behaviors that are possible,
so it's going to be a major step for the industry.