The Totally Autonomous Yacht - Coming Soon?

by Triton on 21 May 2007 Soon it seems you'll be able to cross oceans in your sailing yacht without winding a winch or touching a steering wheel. They're not on the market yet, but if an Austrian Association has its way, it won't be long.

Triton reports that the research team from the Austrian Association for Innovative Computer Science (InnoC) has developed a fully automatic mechanism for their innovative ROBOAT, in order to make this vision come true. In September this year their ROBOAT will face the challenge to sail the Irish Sea without human control or intervention.

With wind as the only propulsion, their ROBOAT is able to autonomously navigate towards any given target and the optimal route is calculated by weighting drift coordinates against weather parameters. The rudder and sails as well as the tacks and jibes are autonomously controlled by incoming data from sensors (GPS, compass, anemometer, etc.), which are analyzed using artificial intelligence. In the full-scale application a sailor on board will be able to overrule the system for manual control.

'Our ROBOAT for the Microtransat championship in Wales is about four metres long. Nevertheless, the algorithms and systems used on board can be scaled up for use on larger boats that are more frequently found on the open sea' according to Roland Stelzer, who is the project leader of the ROBOAT 2007 and President of the InnoC Association. 'The future we envisage for the ROBOAT system is that it can become a reliable support tool for sailors in leisure boats, a means to cut energy costs by use in waterway logistics, and in addition an aid for rescue boats.'