Unmanned watercraft

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Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle of the US Navy
Unmanned trimaran Sea Hunter of DARPA in April 2016
An autonomous spaceport drone ship in April 2016

As unmanned water vehicle , robot ship or drones ship are boats and ships designated, the self ( autonomous ) or remotely and can operate without their own team. The English-language terms unmanned surface vehicle or autonomous surface vehicle are also very widespread (German: unmanned or autonomous surface vehicle ). There are essentially four areas of application:

  • Oceanography : To explore the seas
  • Military : For reconnaissance, mine clearance, but also for offensive use or as a target ship
  • Cargo Shipping ( Academic ): Research in the field of autonomy. The automated transport of goods has been tested in studies on a model scale since 2014.
  • Space travel : The space company SpaceX , founded and run by Elon Musk , had an unmanned floating landing platform built for returnable rockets as part of its development program for reusable spacecraft . Since a landing rocket stage with the engines would pose a considerable risk to the crew of the platform during deceleration and, especially in the development phase, it was to be assumed that the platform would fail or even crash, the platform was carried out unmanned.

In science fiction literature and in films and video games of this genre, the term drone ship is also used for unmanned spaceships. Examples are the Romulan drone ships in the Star Trek science fiction universe or the drone ships in the Warhammer video game world.

Examples

Concrete implementation

The Norwegian group Yara International is running the project of a fully electric autonomously controlled container ship called Yara Birkeland . The hull was built at the Vard shipyard in Brăila (Romania). The Yara Birkeland is to be used in feeder traffic from the Yara fertilizer plant in Herøya industrial park and the ports of Brevik and Larvik. Due to the corona pandemic , the project was stopped for the time being in May 2020.

Since December 2019, a system called "B Zero" for autonomous navigation on board the 5600 TEU container ship Henrika Schulte has been tested under real conditions. The research project was initiated by the Fraunhofer Center for Maritime Logistics and Services (CML) and is initially intended to enable an unmanned bridge in open sea areas under moderate environmental conditions for up to eight hours.

See also

literature

  • Michael Meyer: Remote control on the high seas . In: Hansa , issue 7/2015, pp. 40–41
  • Michael Meyer: Autonomous "Tesla of the Seas": Open view, but clear view of the fjord . In: Hansa , issue 12/2018, pp. 36–41

Web links

Commons : Unmanned Watercraft  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ben Schwan: crew from board. In: Technology Review , April 3, 2014.
  2. ^ Rudolf Opitz: Robot ship with electric drive , Heise Online, October 4, 2014.
  3. ↑ Ben Schwan: Robot Ship: Freight Ship with Electric Drive Drives Autonomously , Heise Online, December 4, 2014.
  4. ↑ Romulan Drone Ship , Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki.
  5. ↑ explorer drone ship , Page Community.
  6. ^ "Sea Hunter" - robot ship all alone , ORF, May 3, 2016, accessed May 4, 2016.
  7. ↑ Benjamin Klare: "B Zero" is supposed to relieve officers. In: Daily port report , December 5, 2019.
  8. ↑ Guard-free ship bridge? New research project B ZERO started. , Fraunhofer Center for Maritime Logistics and Services, December 4, 2019, PDF