Rolls-Royce plans to build gigantic unmanned ships for shipping

After selling its automobile division to BMW Germans, Rolls-Royce is currently focused on the manufacture of turbine engines and plans to enter the maritime freight market (whose volume is $ 375 billion / year) with its unmanned vehicle, reports 8BANKS.

Rolls-Royce UAV Cargo Ship Concept Design.

Unmanned vehicles will navigate using GPS. Without a crew team that needs to pay salaries and feed, and is fraught with human risks, delivery should become even easier, safer and cheaper. According to Moore Stephens LLP, an accounting and consulting company in the shipping industry, crew costs $ 3299 / day, which is about 44 percent of the total daily operating expenses for a large cargo ship.



Of course, unions are not enthusiastic about this idea. Dave Heindel, chairman of the Sailors Union in London, writes: “A drone cannot and will not replace the eyes, ears and brain of professional sailors. The human factor is one of the first signals that trigger in the event of equipment failure or sudden changes in conditions, which, as you know, is not uncommon in the field of shipping. Unmanned aerial vehicles are too risky, which, as a result, is highly likely to adversely affect the environment. ”
The prospect of a drone ship is within our technological capabilities, but sending a ship without a captain can have a lot of legal consequences, so it makes sense to postpone this idea.

In order to solve all these potential problems, the European Union allocated $ 4.8 million for a project called MUNIN (short for Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks). This is a GPS-based system that should prevent the possibility of departure from the course of marine drones, and will generally ensure its safe operation. The diagram below shows how the MUNIN system detects a smaller ship, determines the likelihood of a collision and, if so, the unmanned vessel is redirected in the green arrow to prevent an accident.



Who will be interested, the full presentation of the MUNIN system in English will be published in the comments.