Rolls-Royce is looking to join the likes of Amazon's drones in the sky and Google's driver-less cars on the roads by sailing the seas with remote-controlled cargo ships.
The firm’s Blue Ocean development team designed the unmanned ship prototypes after the European Union gave 3.5 million euros ($4.8 million) to a project called Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks (MUNIN). In developing unmanned ships, the project aims to solve some of the problems of crowded European waters and increasing environmental requirements.
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Because they have no need for crew facilities and systems like air conditioning, electricity and sewage, the drone ships would theoretically be cheaper to operate. In addition, according to a statement from Oskar Levander, Rolls-Royce’s vice president of innovation, engineering and technology, the drone ships would also be safer and produce less pollution.
Despite the potential benefits, Simon Bennett, a spokesman for the International Chamber of Shipping, spoke to Bloomberg News about the legal issues of unmanned ships. Under current international law, unmanned ships are illegal due to set minimum crew requirements.
Furthermore, e-navigation and unmanned ships are the subject of debate in the $375 billion shipping industry. The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), a union that represents about 600,000 of the 1 million seafarers worldwide believes that remote-controlled drone ships would lack the skill and knowledge brought by professional seafarers.
“It cannot and will never replace the eyes, ears and thought processes of professional seafarers,” Dave Heindel, chairman of the ITF’s seafarers’ section in London, told Bloomberg News. “The human element is one of the first lines of defense in the event of machinery failure and the kind of unexpected and sudden changes of conditions in which the world’s seas specialize.”
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