Boats That Drive Themselves

Wouldn’t it be great if you could hang out in the cockpit with the rest of the gang and leave the driving to someone else? A new collaboration between Raymarine and Avikus aims to allow just that by bringing self-driving boats one step closer to reality.

by Craig Ritchie

All photos courtesy of Avikus

If we’re all completely honest, then we can admit we’ve all experienced it. The sun is shining, it’s a gorgeous day, and everyone is hanging out in the cockpit having fun while we’re stuck at the helm, feeling more like a chauffeur than one of the gang.

If we’re all completely honest, we can also admit there have been times when we felt less than confident bringing the boat back to the dock. Maybe it was a holiday weekend with too many people in the water, or a gusty wind making for tough handling at low speeds. Or maybe the boat was new, and we hadn’t yet become comfortable with it. Regardless, there isn’t a skipper alive who hasn’t felt apprehension when approaching the slip at some point in their lives.

If we’re all completely honest, then we’d all agree it would be just wonderful if there were times when the boat could simply drive itself.

That day may be a lot closer than we think.

A new collaboration between two technology giants aims to make self-driving boats a reality — not off in the distant future, but by the middle of this decade.

South Korean manufacturing conglomerate HD Hyundai raised a lot of eyebrows last year when it announced it was testing autonomous navigation and docking technology for commercial ships, which will allow them to operate without crews.

What’s more, the company revealed that it had set up a whole new subsidiary — called Avikus — to develop a consumer version of the new technology platform, allowing recreational boats to also simply drive themselves.

Avikus debuted its NeuBoat self-driving technology last October at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, taking marine journalists on demonstration rides across the busy harbor on a boat piloted by its computerized captain. What’s more, the company further announced it was collaborating with electronics titan Raymarine to jointly develop the platform and bring it to market.

Bleeding edge technology

The Avikus platform utilizes a combination of technologies including cameras, GPS and Lidar to assess on-water navigational challenges in real-time, and maneuver around them without human intervention. Its deep learning and sensor fusion algorithms are organized as either navigation assistant systems (NAS) or docking assistant systems (DAS).

The NAS element functions like a next-generation autopilot, creating and maintaining an optimal route for safe navigation while not just watching out for, but actively avoiding boats, buoys or other potential collision targets. It allows boaters to enjoy their time on the water without having to actually operate the vessel or understand the meaning of buoys, markers and other navigational aids. If desired, users can monitor the system’s progress on an Augmented Reality (AR) dashboard screen, which identifies potential collision threats and indicates risk level using different colored informational boxes. Or, it can be monitored remotely with a mobile device, so the owner never really needs to leave their guests lounging in the cockpit or up front on the sunpad.

Avikus DAS technology takes over at the slip, applying an integrated cognitive system that permits the boat to dock itself using the Avikus 3D surround view system and a collision warning alarm. The system automatically compensates for current, tides and even the effect of wakes from passing boats to guide the vessel cleanly into its slip.

Before coming to Fort Lauderdale, the company successfully tested the platform with a fully autonomous navigation of the six mile long Pohang Canal in Pohang City, Korea. The waterway, with an average width of just over 30 feet, is known as

a complex and challenging navigational environment with heavy boat traffic and extremely congested ports. The Avikus self-driving test boat easily navigated through the maze of traffic, correctly assessing potential collision threats and proactively taking appropriate action as a licensed captain stood at the helm ready to take over in the event of a failure, but without ever having to actually touch the controls.

The system Avikus demonstrated at the Fort Lauderdale show was even further refined, reflecting additional advances made since the Pohang Canal test. But what really raised eyebrows at FLIBS was the announcement that Avikus had entered into a new collaboration with Raymarine to integrate the Avikus NeuBoat platform into Raymarine’s suite of navigational products, and jointly explore future platform development.

“This is groundbreaking as it will result in future boaters being able to have all their navigational equipment from Raymarine combined with Avikus NeuBoat, the next generation autonomous navigation system,” says Avikus CEO Do-hyeong Lim. “No other technology has changed the boating experience the way NeuBoat will. Boating on the open water is often seen as the ultimate experience of freedom, but what kind of freedom is it when you must constantly worry about collisions, safety and navigation? With NeuBoat you can experience the true freedom of the open sea on your own terms.”

A true partnership

For its part, Raymarine was equally positive about the potential for developing the Avikus platform further, and particularly through the potential integration of its own radar technology and Lighthouse cartography.

“Raymarine strives to provide the most innovative, user-friendly and reliable electronics to make boating accessible and safe for everyone,” says Raymarine General Manager Gregoire Outters. “With Avikus’ proven solution in autonomous commercial marine, this will pave the way for our engineers to work closely together, to deliver this exciting new technology to our leisure boat customers.”

Outters says the collaboration between the two firms represents a true partnership, with both companies contributing considerable intellectual property to the venture.

“Raymarine has a history of over 80 years of developing marine electronics,” he says.

“Over the last five years we have built significant experience developing assisted docking systems with our first system launching in 2019, we now offer four different systems with Docksense Control and Docksense Alert both offering either stern-only or full 360 protection around a vessel.”

Perhaps even more importantly, he notes, the collaboration provides an opportunity to incorporate technology not presently integrated into the platform.

“We are in the very early stages of our partnership with Avikus, and we are exploring ways that we can work together with Avikus and other suppliers of this exciting technology, as well as developing our own solutions in house and within the wider Teledyne Technologies group,” Outters says.

”Radar is an obvious solution to extend the limited range of the lidar sensor used within the system. Raymarine also offers precision heading sensors which are critical to the system,” he continues. “As part of the Teledyne Technology family we are also able to supply a wide offering of visible and thermal imaging cameras. Our YachtSense Link

4G marine router can provide a method of connecting remotely to the vessel. We have the critical technologies to develop and improve autonomy, including some of the best sensors within Raymarine and Teledyne: Radars, cameras, sonars, autopilots and AIS.”

While Raymarine and Avikus work to perfect the NeuBoat autonomous operating system, it is clear that the age of self-driving boats will soon be here. While we can always choose to turn the technology off and run the boat ourselves, won’t it be nice to at least have the option of letting someone else do the driving?

If we’re all completely honest, the answer has to be a resounding yes.