Autonomous tugboat will make a trailblazing 1,150 mile voyage

There are a number of autonomous boats under development, but we've seen few commercial self-driving ships plying waterways. Now, a company called Sea Machines has announced that it will send an autonomous, remotely commanded tugboat on a 1,000 nautical mile (1,150 mile) "Machine Odyssey" voyage around Denmark. The tug ("Nellie Bly") will have "full onboard vessel control managed by autonomous technology," but be operated under the authority of officers located in the US. The aim is to show "global companies that operate the fleets of cargo ships, tugs, ferries, and the many other types of commercial workboats that they can integrate autonomous technology into their vessel operations for a host of technology-driven benefits." The tug will be steered by Sea Machines' SM300 autonomous system equipped with long-range computer vision. It's a "sensor-to-propeller" system that employs "path-planning, obstacle avoidance replanning, vectored nautical chart data and dynamic domain perception" to control a voyage from start to finish.