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Self-Driving Boats Are Here - March 2024
Self-Driving Boats Are Here
It wasn’t long ago that the idea of boats that drive themselves seemed like some crazy, futuristic fantasy. But today you can buy boats that actually dock themselves, while fully self-driving capabilities are expected to come to market within the next 12 to 18 months. Ready to meet the future? Here’s a look at the systems competing for space on your helm.
by Craig Ritchie
Just four or five years ago, the idea that someone’s boat could navigate to the slip and dock itself without human intervention would have been laughed off as some crazy George Jetson fantasy. Yet, today you can buy it. What’s more, there’s even more advanced technology coming to market in the very near future, including systems that will not just dock the boat, but drive it wherever you want to go without any human intervention at all.
The reality is, self-driving boats are seen as the future of boating. In consumer surveys taken all around the world, prospective boat buyers were asked why they haven’t yet taken the plunge and bought a boat themselves. Their answers varied, of course, but the top answer — by far — wasn’t a lack of money or a lack of time. Nope, the main reason people stop short of buying a boat is fear of having to bring it back to the dock. Fear of losing control to an unexpected gust of wind, or perhaps an unseen wake from a passing vessel, scares people silly. It’s a particularly strong fear among people who grew up without a boat in the family, and for whom the entire idea of boating is new and unfamiliar.
Boats with automated docking systems that can bring the boat those final few yards into the slip alleviate those fears, and that’s why so many companies are pushing to bring autonomous boats to market.
Intrigued? Here’s a look at systems either currently available on the market, or currently in development for launch in the coming year.
Avikus / Raymarine
South Korean tech firm Avikus is generally considered the leader in autonomous boating, having announced its self-driving boat software at the 2022 CES show, then demonstrated a prototype at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show the following October. At the 2023 Miami show, the company gave away 100 systems to boaters wishing to become beta testers, then went to market with the full commercial version of its NeuBoat Dock platform in October 2023. Lakeland Boating took a look at this new technology in the March 2023 feature “Boats That Drive Themselves” (p. 40).
Avikus NeuBoat is a proven platform that uses a combination of GPS, stereoscopic cameras and lidar inputs to make navigation decisions. In 2022, the company — a division of Korean shipping giant HD Hyundai — installed a prototype system on one of Hyundai’s massive ocean-going cargo ships for testing. The vessel left the U.S. Gulf Coast, crossed the Gulf of Mexico, navigated through the Panama Canal, and sailed across the Pacific back to Korea without a human hand ever touching the wheel. What’s more, because the computerized system made continuous route corrections on the fly, the ship completed the voyage using 7% less fuel than usual.
The current Avikus software is considered a Level 2 autonomy system, meaning that insurance companies still demand a human be standing at the helm, ready to take control in case of a malfunction. A Level 3 upgrade that will bring full self-driving capability is in the works, and is expected to hit the market by 2025. That’s now less than a year away.
Avikus has hinted that its fully autonomous NeuBoat platform will do more than just drive the boat while you and your guests relax in the cockpit. The company is developing advanced features around the platform like an integrated fish finder application, which lets the owner choose what kind of fish they want to catch, then leave it to the software to take them to the ideal location based on the fish’s preferred habitat and historic catch data. It then commands a separate sonar system to execute a search pattern over the area to physically locate fish.
Also under development is a sunset app, which can take the boat to the perfect location to enjoy a spectacular sunset, arriving at the right time and positioning the craft precisely to provide the best views. Additional watersports and cruising apps are also being proposed.
Brunswick
Brunswick was an early adopter of auto-docking technology, collaborating with Raymarine in 2019 to help integrate Raymarine’s DockSense product with Mercury’s joystick piloting platform. But since acquiring electronics giant Navico in 2021, Brunswick has gone on to develop its own fully automatic docking system. In August 2023, the company revealed its first prototype to a handful of boating journalists — myself included.
The as-yet unnamed system uses a pair of differential GNSS GPS receivers and a series of onboard stereoscopic cameras to determine the vessel’s exact position, and its exact proximity to other nearby objects like docks, piers, sea walls and boats. But beyond simple object recognition, it also has the ability to incorporate machine-learning algorithms and make decisions related to course and speed in order to bring the vessel to a slip that the operator selects on a touchscreen display.
The combination of situational awareness and navigational decision-making allows Brunswick’s system to neatly maneuver around obstacles and bring the vessel to the dock. The differential GPS brings the boat close, before handing control over to the stereoscopic cameras for those crucial final feet. Because they can perceive distance, the stereo cameras allow a level of accuracy at close range that GPS alone just can’t match, says the company. In our on-water test in a very busy New York harbor, the system brought our Boston Whaler test boat close enough to the slip that I could have easily bridged the remaining gap with my cellphone.
Brunswick is planning to bring its docking assist product to market in 2025. Given its scale and reach, this could prove to be a real game-changer.
Daewoo
Korean firm Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine
Engineering is a direct competitor to Avikus, and the company demonstrated a version of its own autonomous navigation system at the 2023 Korea International Boat Show. While slightly less developed than the Avikus NeuBoat product, Daewoo’s system is also Level 2 autonomous and is currently undergoing intensive testing as the company looks to develop versions for both the commercial shipping and recreational boating markets. The company won’t commit to a possible release date, but the prototype it showed in Korea certainly looks ready to go to market.
Garmin
Garmin introduced its innovative Surround View camera system back in 2021. While it doesn’t include electronics to drive the boat for you, by providing skippers with a real-time overhead view of the boat, Surround View gives boaters an unmatched level of situational awareness as they approach the slip.
Surround View uses a proprietary software suite to stitch together live data feeds from up to six different cameras mounted onboard the boat, yielding a seamless, wraparound overhead view. A visual bumper feature helps the captain see when docks, piers or other objects breach preset barrier limits around the boat, while distance markers provide visual cues to help maintain safe clearance and separation.
While Garmin understandably won’t say anything about possible future developments, it seems a safe bet to expect the company is already looking at using Surround View, perhaps with GPS and radar, as a foundation for developing its own autonomous platform.
Samsung
Yet another Korean competitor to Avikus, Samsung also unveiled a prototype version of an autonomous navigation platform at the 2023 Korea International Boat Show. Its Level 2 system also features advanced collision avoidance technology, and like Daewoo’s platform, is in an advanced testing stage.
The company won’t say anything further, but the fact it demonstrated a prototype at a major international boat show suggests it hopes to bring the system to market soon. With Samsung’s massive financial and technical resources, this system could be one to watch.
Yamaha
Yamaha treated a handful of boating journalists — once again including yours truly — to an advance peek at its DockPoint autonomous docking platform during the 2023 Miami Boat Show. Installed on a Grady-White Canyon 336 center console rigged with twin Yamaha 425 XTO Offshore outboards, the system performed flawlessly — as expected, given Yamaha’s plans to bring the platform to market in early 2024.
DockPoint allows boaters to store the physical location of up to 100 different docks and boat ramps in its memory, including preferences such as port-side or starboard-side mooring. Upon return to the marina, the operator simply navigates to a location within 328 feet (100 meters) of the slip. Pushing two buttons activates the system and has it take control of the boat for the final approach to the dock.
Using two differential GPS antennas, Yamaha’s DockPoint system can accurately take the boat to within a few inches of the slip and hold it in position while the skipper secures the lines. The DockPoint platform instantly responds to wind gusts, boat wakes and currents to ensure a successful approach every time out, the company says.
What Yamaha did not show last year was touchscreen-controlled software that presents an overhead view of the marina and allows the skipper to use familiar drag-and-drop fingertip controls to move the boat around. Or, alternatively, simply tap the slip they want and let the software drive the boat to the dock. This software app is not in production, and it doesn’t exist as a prototype; however, Yamaha filed an application with the U.S. patent office for it in October 2022, so perhaps we’ll see drag-and-drop control one day as a future feature in its DockPoint platform.
Volvo Penta
Swedish propulsion giant Volvo Penta is another autonomy pioneer, having launched its first assisted docking platform back in 2021. The Assisted Docking system integrates a proprietary software layer with the company’s GPS-based Dynamic Positioning System and proprietary IPS. Combined with Volvo’s joystick control and glass cockpit systems, it provides full assisted docking capability. It compensates automatically for currents, boat wakes and wind gusts, allowing even novice captains to easily guide their boat into even the tightest of slips.
Further upping the ante, Volvo Penta now works in collaboration with Garmin, integrating its Surround View camera system to further enhance the platform’s assisted docking capability.
Azimut Yachts was the first boat brand to adopt Volvo’s assisted docking technology, followed by Groupe Beneteau and Holland, Michigan-based Tiara Yachts.
While the platform still requires inputs from the captain, with parent company Volvo Group’s substantial investments in autonomous systems for cars, the development of a fully autonomous marine platform surely can’t be far off. Volvo, as to be expected, won’t say anything but I predict the company will attract a lot of attention at this winter’s boat shows following the futuristic view of boating — including fully autonomous vessels — that it presented last year.
