The driverless boat has been already tested in Amsterdam’s canals in 2016
Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Senseable City Lab in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) have designed a fleet of autonomous boats which could be used to transport people and to deliver goods, easing street traffic in cities such as Amsterdam, Venice or Bangkok.
In the future, the MIT researchers also envision the driverless boats being adapted to perform city services overnight, instead of during busy daylight hours, further reducing congestion on both roads and canals.
“Imagine shifting some of infrastructure services that usually take place during the day on the road — deliveries, garbage management, waste management — to the middle of the night, on the water, using a fleet of autonomous boats,” said CSAIL director Daniela Rus.
The boats are equipped with sensors, micro-controllers, GPS modules, and other hardware. They could be programmed to self-assemble into floating bridges, concert stages, platforms for food markets, and other structures in a matter of hours. “Some of the activities that are usually taking place on land, and that cause disturbance in how the city moves, can be done on a temporary basis on the water,” Rus added.
The autonomous boats could also be equipped with environmental sensors to monitor a city’s waters and gain insight into urban and human health.
To make the boats, the researchers 3D-printed a rectangular hull with a commercial printer, producing 16 separate sections that were spliced together. Printing took around 60 hours. The completed hull was then sealed by adhering several layers of fiberglass.
Integrated onto the hull are a power supply, Wi-Fi antenna, GPS, and a mini-computer and micro-controller. MIT’s researchers also incorporated an indoor ultrasound beacon system and outdoor real-time kinematic GPS modules, which allow for centimeter-level localization, as well as an inertial measurement unit (IMU) module that monitors the boat’s main metrics.
The autonomous boat is a rectangular shape, instead of the traditional kayak or catamaran shapes, to allow the vessel to move sideways and to attach itself to other boats when assembling into structures.
A next step for the work is developing adaptive controllers to account for changes in mass and drag of the boat when transporting people and goods. The researchers are also refining the controller to account for wave disturbances and stronger currents.
In 2016, a prototype of this boat had been tested in Amsterdam’s canals as part of a collaboration project with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS). During the trial, the boat cruised around the city’s canals, moving forward, backward, and laterally along a pre-programmed path.
Two years ago, MIT signed an agreement to engage in research collaborations with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) in the Netherlands. The collaboration’s flagship project, dubbed ROBOAT, had the main aim of developing a fleet of autonomous boats for the city’s canals.
The ROBOAT project will also deploy environmental sensing to monitor water quality and offer data for assessing and predicting issues related to public health, pollution, and the environment in Amsterdam.
