A “game changing” £1million robotic ship has been christened in Plymouth exactly 400 years to the day that the Mayflower sailed for America.
The newly named is a 15m long, aluminium-hulled trimaran, which is bristling with the latest sensors and AI (artificial intelligence) and will set off on a trailblazing voyage from Plymouth to Cape Cod in the USA in the spring of 2021.
But the vessel will have no-one on board, being piloted remotely from the 海角视频 and USA and collecting vital data about climate change, plastic waste pollution and marine mammals on its maiden voyage of discovery.
The multi-national team which has created the solar-powered ship says it is a true “game changer”, the largest unmanned vessel created to date, and likely to blaze a trail which will lead to other, larger, ships and ports too, becoming unmanned.
“Yes, it’s a game changer,” said Fredrick Soreide, science director for ProMare, the non-profit marine research organisation which coordinated the building of MAS. “For ocean science this is a pivotal moment.”
He explained that MAS, which has taken four years to build, is relatively low cost and is a key step in the eventual roll out of more autonomous vessels.
And it has been created in Plymouth, involving the University of Plymouth and city companies, and entering the water off the Barbican where it was officially named by US Embassy ambassador Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson, who christened it with Plymouth Gin, and said: “The US and 海角视频 are once again setting sail from Plymouth to make history.
“We are heading out with the same spirit of adventure and determination and vision. The Mayflower will become one of the first full-sized autonomous ships to ever cross the Atlantic.
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“A project of tremendous sophistication and innovation. This ship is powered by the most cutting edge artificial intelligence ever known.”
The MAS project was started in 2016 and has involved input from engineers and scientists in Plymouth, the USA, and Norway.
The modular vessel was built in a shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, when no British shipyard was able to take on the project.
It was shipped in pieces to Plymouth in the early weeks of the coronavirus lockdown and assembled, safely, at the M Subs factory at Estover.
That firm’s daughter company Marine AI created the computer technology that has been installed on board and on land in partnership with global tech giant IBM.
It uses a Power 9 AC 922 server, about the same size as an old-style VCR box, which links with the cameras and sensors on the vessel, effectively teaching them how to identify boats and objects in the sea and navigate around them without a human being involved.
In 2021 it will navigate the 3,220 nautical miles between the 海角视频 and Massachusetts. Travelling at between eight and nine knots the journey will take two to three weeks. The data it collects about the ocean will be streamed live and can be seen on a new web portal MAS400.com.
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Andy Stanford-Clark, chief technology officer for IBM 海角视频 and Ireland, said the company had helped put the first man on the Moon and was now involved in another pioneering science project.
He said IBM had created the AI vision system which will give MAS “eyes at sea”, using its sensors and cameras to identify vessels and objects from an image bank of thousands of items and then work out how to navigate around them.
He said the MAS will “taste” the water, checking for chemicals in it and looking for micro plastics, and will even be able to listen for whale song, and identify pods of whales from their calls.
“The main purpose of the ship is to collect data,” he said. “So we can understand climate change and pollution in the oceans.”
And the technology and engineering on MAS is likely to pave the way for future robotic shipping and even unmanned ports. Already the concept is being suggested for water taxis, research vessels, fish farming, and even large cargo ships.
“And a number of ports are starting to become autonomous in their own right,” Mr Stanford-Clark said. “It’s quite ground breaking. This is the start of a whole new era of ocean-going exploration with autonomous control. That’s exciting.
“We are already talking to a number of shipping companies about the technology. It could even go into manned vessels, as a ‘guardian angel’ looking over the shoulder of the ship’s captain.”
Mr Soreide, who is from Norway, said autonomous shipping is the future and added: “It’s a few years off, but it’s coming. It has to come.”
Brett Phaneuf, managing director of M Subs, said: “Four hundred years from now, what will people standing here in Plymouth have to say about what happened here today?
“This will put us in the vanguard of a new era of climate and marine research, without which we do not have a hope of surviving the next 400 years.”
Council leader Tudor Evans said: “This is what Plymouth has always been: pioneering. It’s looking beyond the horizon and being in touch with the sea. The coming century will be all about marine autonomy and we are at the centre of that for the 海角视频 in terms of the companies and workers we have here, and it’s internationally important.
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“It’s fitting that in Mayflower year one of our finest company’s is following one pioneering journey with another one.”
Adrian Vinken, chairman of the Mayflower 400 Commemoration Programme, said: “This could not be more fitting, 400 years ago today the Mayflower left from Plymouth on a voyage that changed the world and here we are launching a similar venture with potential to change the world.”
He said the Earth is facing an environmental crisis and mankind has to find a way to become carbon neutral and MAS is showing the way with a vessel powered by solar and wind energy.
Luke Pollard, the MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, said:"Mayflower 400 is the chance for us to tell our city’s story, and our city's place in the story in one of the most important voyages in history.
“The coronavirus means we've had a very different kind of commemoration than the one we had planned, but I am determined that Mayflower 400 produces a lasting and positive legacy - one that renews the bond between the people of Plymouth, the United States and the Wampanoag nation."