Rolls-Royce plans to build a giant unmanned ships for ocean shipping
After the sale of its automotive division Germans from BMW, Rolls-Royce is currently focused on the manufacture of turbine engines and is planning to enter the market of shipping (which amounts to $ 375 billion / year) with its unmanned spacecraft, сообщает Agency Bloomberg . h5>
The design concept of the cargo ship drone from Rolls-Royce. I>
Unmanned vehicles will navigate using GPS. Without the crew team, which must pay salaries and feed, and which is associated with human risk, delivery should be even easier, safer and cheaper. According to the company «Moore Stephens LLP», performing accounting and consulting services in the field of shipping, the content of crew costs $ 3299 / day, which is about 44 per cent of the total daily operating costs for a large cargo ship.
Of course, that unions are not thrilled with the idea. Dave Heindel, chairman of the Seafarers' Union in London, writes: "The UAV can not and will not replace the eyes, ears and brain professional sailors. The human factor is one of the first signals that are triggered in the event of equipment failure or sudden changes in conditions, which, as you know, is not uncommon in the field of maritime transport. Ship-drones are too risky undertaking, which ended up with a high probability may adversely affect the environment ».
The prospect of ship-UAV is within our technological capabilities, but shipping sailing without a captain can have a lot of legal consequences, so it makes sense to hold off on that idea.
To solve all these potential problems, the European Union has allocated $ 4, 8 million on a project called MUNIN (short for Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks). It is a system based on GPS, which is to prevent the possibility of exit from the rate of sea drones, and will generally ensure its safe operation. The diagram below shows how to use the system MUNIN is detected smaller ship, the probability of collision and, if so, the vessel-drone redirected to the green arrow to prevent the accident.
This will be interesting, full presentation of MUNIN English here .
