Rolls Royce Developing Drone Cargo Ships 216
kc123 writes in with news that Rolls Royce is designing unmanned cargo ships."Rolls-Royce's Blue Ocean development team has set up a virtual-reality prototype at its office in Alesund, Norway, that simulates 360-degree views from a vessel's bridge. Eventually, the London-based manufacturer of engines and turbines says, captains on dry land will use similar control centers to command hundreds of crewless ships. Drone ships would be safer, cheaper and less polluting for the $375 billion shipping industry that carries 90 percent of world trade, Rolls-Royce says."
Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
What do the humans actually do on a ship? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is mainly about using telepresence and computers to pilot a ship. But other than piloting, what else do humans do, and how automatable is it?
For example, how often do people have to repair ships while under way? During a storm, do people ever have to run around fixing chains that are working loose, or fix a leaking seal and set up pumps to pump out a flooded compartment?
I don't know the answers to the above questions, by the way. I don't know much about cargo ships.
Even if we still need humans for some tasks on a cargo ship, perhaps not too far in the future, we might have telepresence robots that can do the tasks.
Re:until someone hacks it (Score:5, Insightful)
Will the pirates at least wave and say thank you to the crew when they take manual control of the ship? How about just looting a few cargo containers as it's travelling along?
Re:What do the humans actually do on a ship? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bandwidth (Score:2, Insightful)
One image per 5 minutes is probably more than enough for virtually all ships, since they move so slowly, and since there's no point in breaking for something you detect faster than that. Once something interesting shows up, you increase the update frequency to 1 image per minute, and so on until you reach real-time streaming. Also, since most of the sea isn't changing, you can also filter out almost all of the picture when the update is sent.
You could even trigger the change in update frequency with sensors, such as radar, sonar or infra red (for pirates).
I bet someone has already patented this obvious answer...
Re:I'm sure pirates will like them. (Score:3, Insightful)
in containers that aren't labelled, stacked 5 high and 10 wide [or more], where you would have to move most containers to be able to actually open them to see inside, nevermind the whole "in the middle of the ocean without a road in sight" thing.
and while it could be fairly easy to disable remote control of the ship [by physically destroying/disconnecting the antenae/satellite dish], and they can kill the engine, it may not be that easy to get control of the ship to get it to shore in a reasonable [for the pirate] way.
maybe it will become a 'give us money or we'll sink it' thing?
Re:What do the humans actually do on a ship? (Score:5, Insightful)
This idea is being proposed by an engine manufacture. I'm sure they thought about engine maintenance.
Re:until someone hacks it (Score:2, Insightful)
"$10M or your $LARGESUM ship and cargo land at the bottom of the ocean".
Re:until someone hacks it (Score:5, Insightful)
And no control over the contents that specific ship may have, or whether they can find a market for the booty...I don't buy it either.
I was under the impression that the whole point of the piracy was the payoff on the hostages, and really had nothing to do with the ship's cargo. (generalization, not 100% accurate)
And no control over the ship either. The remote crew could just sail it to the nearest friendly warship.
Also no need for the ship to look like a regular ship to start with. No need for fixed railings or entrance ways at sea-level - good luck grappling to that.