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New boat goes to America - 28th May 2021

This is a ship with a difference. Engineers have designed it to sail by itself. The world’s first driverless boat is called Mayflower 400.

An international team developed the ship to sail across the Atlantic ocean. People from Europe travelled to America on the original Mayflower. But Mayflower 400 won’t have any sailors or passengers on it.

The ship’s preparations were delayed because of Covid-19. Engineering student Meirwen Jenking-Rees explains the tests it goes through.

Meirwen Jenking-Rees: "It’s possible. It’s just a bit of a struggle that we’re still in the, in the trials area. So we haven’t been able to go out in full choppy ocean waves, wind, rain. The full sort of worst case scenario stuff hasn’t been achieved yet."

Artificial intelligence controls Mayflower 400. The computer notices other ships using cameras and thousands of pictures of boats. It’s also learnt the rules for travelling at sea. The team can check that everything’s OK from land.

Computer engineer Oliver Thompson designed the computer.

Oliver Thompson: "We don’t have to show her every single boat she’ll ever see for her to know that that particular boat is a boat. There are common features, and that applies to the decisions she makes as well."

Mayflower 400 is also environmentally friendly. Its computers use energy from the sun. There is more scientific equipment because driverless boats don’t need space for people. This means it can collect more information about the sea. It will also provide more data on whales.

Brett Phaneuf manages Mayflower 400. His goal is to make it easier to collect environmental information. He is very hopeful about the project.

Brett Phaneuf: "And then if we can do that – remaining safe in terms of other people on the ocean, other ships on the ocean and also dealing with whatever the ocean can throw at us from a weather perspective – the AI systems can do that. That’s a huge move forward into reducing the cost of going to sea to collect the data that we need to understand the planet better. And that’s really the ultimate goal."