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."
Laws would have to be changed (Score:5, Interesting)
If someone boards an unmanned drone ship, wouldn't they be able to claim the ship as salvage and sell the contents?
Very little benefit (Score:5, Interesting)
Drone ships would have very little benefit compared to ships of today, and would save very little labor. That's because crew sizes are already negligible on modern ships. Ships require very little labor for their operation. For example, a massive containership like the Maersk Triple-E might carry 15,000 containers (equivalent to about 7,000 tractor-trailer truckloads) while having a crew of 15, in three shifts. At any one time, there are 5 people transporting 7,000 tractor-trailer truckloads of cargo. If we reduced those jobs, it would make very little difference to costs or anything else.
Bear in mind that three of the 15 positions are the engineering staff who are frequently performing physical operations on a massive engine. Those jobs will not go away by having a single captain for multiple ships.
The number of jobs on a ship is decreasing every year anyway, as ships gradually grow larger. Larger ships generally do not have larger crews, so the amount of labor per unit of cargo keeps dropping anyway. Large containerships today carry more than twice the cargo of ships from 20 years ago, while crew sizes have not grown, so the amount of labor per unit of cargo has dropped by half and continues dropping.
Labor costs are already an extremely small fraction of the costs of operating a ship. It would make little difference to reduce labor costs further.
Re:until someone hacks it (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet, the outcome is still better than it is now, where they hijack the ship and hold the crew ransom. Here, they hijack the ship, and.. that's it. There's no crew to hold for ransom, no one to talk to for instant quick payment, etc. You save human lives.
The only way to make money is for the pirates to go and sell the contents of the containers, which requires a lot more time, effort and money and takes a lot of time. Holding a crew hostage could easily get $10M+ in a week. Making money selling what's in the containers takes far longer.
Re:Very little benefit (Score:5, Interesting)
I should also point out that the statistics mentioned in the article are incorrect. From the article:
A modern containership can cost $200 million, and can consume 300 tons of bunker fuel per day. Thus, the fuel costs are over $100,000 per day, and the costs of the purchase of the ship are over $50,000 per day.
Thus, crew costs are more like 2% of all costs, and not 44% as the quotation indicates.
The only way to arrive at the 44% figure is if you break down containership costs into capital costs (the cost of the ship), bunker costs (fuel), and operating costs (not including fuel). This kind of breakdown is commonly done. If you break things down in this way, "operating costs" are generally about 10% of the total cost of running the ship, and labor costs would be 44% of that ~10%. Thus, labor costs altogether are a few percent of the cost of running a ship.
The article does not spell this out, and gives a mistaken impression.
Re: I'm sure pirates will like them. (Score:2, Interesting)
There will allways be a manual override, on the fancy automated vessels that I check out (fully equiped with Dynamic Positioning systems or DP) there are automatic control systems (DP), simple backup joystick systems and finally simple manual systems (levers for thrusters). These would very likely remain. A pilot would need access to these when taking the vessel into harbour.
Even though it is possible to have vessels remote controlled while at sea they would still need to be manned when they come into the quayside in a harbour. When I come into harbour after testing vessels for sea trials the captain always completes the delicate berthing procedure using the simple manual levers
As for disabling the remote control systems, plastic buckets over the small satellite domes and if there is a large V-Sat then just pull the plug.
So the hijackers just need to come on board the vessel armed with buckets, and perhaps a wire snip for the V-Sat. Also it would seem like a victimless crime to them. They get a ship load of equipment to sell, nobody is hurt, and the insurer pays
Re: and what about the welfare for the people auto (Score:5, Interesting)
You really hate washing machines and tractors too? How much human work is lost because of machines?
Some ... for now. What happens when all of the ~4,000,000 truck drivers in the US are out of a job due to automation. Oh, they'll go to work fixing robots.Mmm hmm. As someone who has been doing controls systems engineering for the last 10 years, I can tell you that these systems are getting better all of the time. I used to get calls at night and on weekends a lot. Now, very few calls. The hardware and software tools and upgrades make it so that the system is very robust. Now, very few calls.
And those truck drivers? Well, I can tell you that the electrical technician's (we have about the same amount as we did 10 years ago) workload has also decreased. Motor brushes are going away. Bearings are becoming sealed, or automated grease systems installed. Breakers: now know when they are able to trip the load, they can isolate the load to the least affected area, and they can minimize the damage because they are so fast. Things last longer because of materials engineering and computer modelling. These guys just don't have that much to do anymore (Kaizen boards, and PRTs notwithstanding, that shit is just make-work).
And really, have you met many truck drivers? Some are very intelligent, but the vast majority have a boring mindless job for a reason.
Take automated cars for instance: Taxicab drivers out of a job. But not only that. Maybe I and my neighbors sign up for a service where a self driving car is called up and arrives where you are in a matter of minutes. I'm not going to buy another car, that's just a waste of money. Also, less cars on the road because they are operating all of the time. Think about how much time your car just sits there. (There's a job at Ford that I've contemplated applying for, but this gives me pause.) And then, less accidents. Bye bye insurance middleman. Bye bye auto body repair guy.Oh yeah, don't forget to apply for a job fixing robots. Bye bye garages. I'm sure our houses will just become bigger.
I could keep typing along these lines, but maybe you could put your mind to this line of reasoning and come up with many more examples. Seriously, the near term future is vastly different than what we've been experiencing. But in the long term, that's a good thing. And the long term future is radically different.
Re:Laws would have to be changed (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely!
Also, international law requires that every ship continuously maintains a "proper" watch by all possible means while at underway. Further, all ships are required to render assistance to any ship or crew in distress. An unmanned ship would by its very nature be unable to maintain a watch 24/7 or pull an injured crew from a liferaft.
Re:until someone hacks it (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:until someone hacks it (Score:5, Interesting)
The ultimate failsafe if remote control was impossible and communication was disabled would be to trip a few circuits deep in the ship, jam the rudder and drop anchors. Good luck towing that. Basically it could be made really unpleasant and futile to hijack these ships. But it could make for some amusing news headlines.