AI Mayflower Autonomous Ship completes uncrewed Atlantic crossing

It’s an Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV), to give it its proper name, that sought to recreate a famous journey. And leaving Plymouth on 27 April 27 2022, it arrived safely at its destination of Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts on 30 June 30 2022 – 3,500 nautical miles later.

Its Artificial Intelligence capability was powered by IBM’s AI engine Watson, apparently renamed AI Captain for the MAS voyage.

The boat was created by the marine research non-profit organisation ProMare (“Promoting Marine Research and Exploration”) and among other instruments on board – 700 kg of scientific equipment, to be precise – was the IBM-designed HyperTaste, described as an electronic tongue that “tastes” seawater to monitor ocean health:

“The size and shape of a citrus slice, it can ‘taste’ liquids and, unlike the human tongue, can be trained using AI to rapidly and autonomously determine their contents. It can even distinguish vintage red wines or other drinks from fake substitutes.”

Mayflower

Why was Iridium involved? Although, in theory, there was no need for a remote communications system, on board was the Iridium Connected Thales VesseLINK 700 terminal, using the Iridium Certus 700 broadband service. This was to enable remote monitoring of the vessel’s navigation, power, and propulsion systems, and also – if needed to enable human command and control intervention.

“We used a number of data sets to train the AI engine and make it self-sufficient,” said Brett Phaneuf, CEO of Promare. “Despite having a human in the operational loop for MAS, AI Captain performed extremely well and rarely required the team’s intervention. AI Captain would alert us if there was another vessel nearby or a significant event occurring. For example, we had several curious fishing vessels watching the MAS, plus the four full high-definition cameras observed a few dolphins. Otherwise, it was boring.”

You can read the full post on the Iridium blog.

Apparently since the Mayflower crossing, the vessel has performed several research missions for organisations including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, reporting on ocean conditions.

Images: IBM, Iridium

See also: Harwin designs GB Row Challenge microplastics sampling system