Autonomous boats will be on the market sooner than self-driving cars

Published April 19, 2018 This content is archived.

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An article on Vice’s Motherboard about new technology that will allow ships to sail autonomously reports Buffalo Automation, a startup that began at UB, has raised $900,000 to help commercialize its AutoMate system, a collection of sensors and cameras to help boats operate semi-autonomously.

The article interviews Thiru Vikram, who started the company as a UB computer science student and said that through testing in the Great Lakes, he discovered that only one ship at a time can pass through its locks and canals, and if a boat arrives early or late it may idle and waste fuel, but algorithms and sensors could be used to interpret weather and seafaring conditions and automatically adjust speed to meet the scheduled time.

Read the story here.