Unmanned ships coast ever closer

摘要

The Marine Professional can exclusively reveal that Rolls Royce is seeking funding from Finnish sources for an unmanned coastal vessel. Speaking to the IMarEST publication on the sidelines of the NorShipping event, the Rolls-Royce VP- innovation, engineering and technology, Oskar Levander said that the vessel is likely to be a ro-ro ferry that would operate a set route along the coastline. "We have been working on the design and wantto demonstrate it in the next three years," he said. The ship designer stated that a working prototype might be the hinge needed to swing opinion towards earlier adoption, as - in spite of being notoriously conservative-there are many parties that have expressed an interest in this way of operating.