Unmanned Sailboats And Robotic Shipping

Check out this Wired article Unmanned Sailboats Test the Waters of Vehicle Autonomy about college students competing to develop autonomous sailboats. Cool stuff. Sounds like fun. Sounds far easier than self-drivable cars that have to deal with a far more complex land environment. The bit about the far more complex land environment triggers some thoughts. First, it makes sense that airplanes had auto-pilots decades before self-driving cars. 30,000 feet in the air presents a far less complex environment of obstacles to avoid than ground level. But oceans also present far fewer obstacles. Granted, oceans pound ships with intense forces in storms. But huge ships aren't going to suffer much damage from such storms. So then why aren't totally unmanned auto-piloted...
Source: FuturePundit - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs