Rolls Royce Robot Ships Coming Soon

Though I would love a 1964 Aston Martin, preferably with guns in the headlights and Sean Connery in the front seat, I am unfamiliar with luxury cars. However, I do know that companies in general need to branch out and expand their brands, so I imagine luxury car manufacturers are no different—but I think I can safely say that the decision of the Rolls Royce company to branch out into designing and building crewless robot cargo ships is just slightly unexpected.

Some background is probably in order: the European Union is funding a project known as MUNIN, or Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence. This 3.5 million euro project wants to develop cargo ships that will be able to sail on their own, without the help of one single human crew member, and Rolls Royce thinks they are the perfect people for the job. According to BBC, the firm has revealed concept designs for the crewless robot ships, and feel that today’s technology might just be enough to make that concept into a reality.

“Now it is time to consider a road map to unmanned vessels of various types. Sometimes what was unthinkable yesterday is tomorrow's reality,” said Rolls Royce’s vice president of innovation, engineering and technology on BBC. “Is it better to have a crew of 20 sailing in a gale in the North Sea, or say five in a control room on shore?”

While there are certainly safety benefits to a remotely controlled ship, there are those who are skeptical about Roll Royce’s vision ever actually coming to fruition, mostly because the design for a crewless ship would have to be much different than a traditional one. Most of the systems needed for a human crew could be simplified or altogether abandoned, leading to a more streamlined type of cargo ship than normal. Such a design won’t be easy to execute.

According to International Chamber of Shipping spokesperson Simon Bennett, we won’t be seeing unmanned ships for at least “two to three decades.”

“”It would require a complete overhaul of the regulatory regime. Apart from the safety considerations, there would also be a lot of questions from bodies such as trade unions,” said Bennett on BBC.

Also, there is the small matter that unmanned ships are still illegal under international law, which might be a minor snag.

While the completely autonomous and crewless ships the EU wants probably won’t come around for a while longer—which is bad for the industry as crew costs are 44% of operating costs, but good for jobs and families—the industry is expanding on “e-navigation,” or the process of navigating a ship from dry land using computerized systems.

Shipping is obviously a booming business, so if Rolls Royce does manage to seize this project and get their ships built, it will mean big things. Their plans are still at the concept stage, though, so I wouldn’t hold out for luxury robot cargo ships anytime particularly soon. Luckily, they do still sell cars.

SourceBBC