This Autonomous Ship Is About To Sail Across The Atlantic On Its Own

The new IBM powered Mayflower autonomous ship is finally ready to sail across the Atlantic.

Mayflower’s journey would begin from Plymouth, England to reach its final destination in Massachusetts U.S.

The AI-run ship has been given the name Mayflower commemorating the crossing of the first Mayflower 400 years ago, the solar-powered marine research vessel is built with intentions to come in handy for collecting environmental data.

The ship has reached this mark after long trials and can now travel its long-distance journey from the UK to the US. While en-route its destination, the self-driven ship would aid in environmental data collection.

Mayflower autonomous ship has spent quite some time in sea trials in the previous months, before heading for its main mission of collecting data on issues including global warming, micro-plastic pollution, and marine mammal conservation acting as a primary data collecting vessel.

Mayflower would make use of radar and GPS to navigate and would be led by a team based in Plymouth making use of AI software from IBM.

The ship contains six cameras attached to the mast that serves as the eyes of the ship as it feeds an AI image recognition system that would aid in avoiding obstacles and other ships in its path.

Mayflower’s venture to its destination in the US would take around 12 days to complete, as reported.

Representatives for the autonomous ship haven’t notified of an exact date for its sail into the waters, however, a webpage for the ship stated that it is “in final testing and outfitting of science equipment” and stated of a departure window for the transatlantic journey is still being planned. “Hoping for early June 2021. More details to follow,” the site reads. It’s not clear when that update was posted. 

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