The Mayflower Autonomous Ship, or MAS
Unmanned ship to go on 400-year-old journey across the Atlantic
By Jen Copestake BBC Click
16 October 2019
A fully autonomous ship tracing the journey of the Mayflower is being built by a UK-based team, with help from tech firm IBM.
The Mayflower Autonomous Ship, or MAS, will launch from Plymouth in the UK in September 2020.
Its voyage will mark the 400th anniversary of the pilgrim ship which brought European settlers to America in 1620.
IBM is providing artificial intelligence systems for the ship.
The vessel will make its own decisions on its course and collision avoidance, and will even make expensive satellite phone calls back to base if it deems it necessary.
The sensor technology guiding its decision-making process includes:
Light detecting and ranging (LIDAR)
Radio detecting and ranging (RADAR)
Global Positioning System (GPS)
Satellites
Cameras
Data on hundreds of ships has already been collected in Plymouth Sound to feed its machine-learning algorithms.
Pilgrim journey
400 years ago, on 6 September 1620, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth to Massachusetts, with 102 passengers and around 30 crew members.
The original journey took more than two months, landing at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, on 21 December 1620.
The passengers onboard, mainly Christian Puritans, became known as pilgrims.
This vessel will repeat their journey but without any humans on board, and a much faster anticipated crossing time of two weeks.
The ship is being built by ProMare - a non-profit marine research organisation - along with IBM.
The project's director, Brett Phaneuf, has ancestral roots in the area where the Mayflower landed on America's east coast, dating back to 1628.
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Sleek design
The Mayflower Autonomous Ship
Max speed 20 knots
Length 15m
Weight 5 tons
The ship is a trimaran with one very long slender main hull optimized for propulsive efficiency.
The two smaller hulls are for stabilization and provide the surface area for the solar panels.
The vessel will run on solar and wind power, with an emergency diesel backup generator if needed.
The hull of the ship is currently under construction in Gdansk, Poland, and is due to arrive in Plymouth next February.
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Timeline
October 2019 - January 2020: Hull constructed in Gdansk, Poland
February 2020: Hull to arrive in Plymouth, UK
February - June 2020: Fitted out with advanced navigation and research equipment
July - August 2020: Testing at sea
September 2020: Sets off from Plymouth, UK, to arrive in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, two weeks later
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Source; BBC News Technology where the full article can be read, plus short videos viewed along with drawings/artists impressions of the vessel.
The Mayflower Autonomous Ship, or MAS
- Little h
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The Mayflower Autonomous Ship, or MAS
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Little h
- Blackbat242
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Re: The Mayflower Autonomous Ship, or MAS
BBC needs to hire proofreaders that can actually read for substance.Unmanned ship to go on 400-year-old journey across the Atlantic
By Jen Copestake BBC
SGT USMC '81-'89 VMA(AW)-121, VMA(AW)-242, CV-61 AIMD