The Mayflower Autonomous Ship finally arrived on the coast of Nova Scotia last month, marking the end of its long trek across the Atlantic. While the modern Mayflower is far from the first vessel to make that voyage, this small robotic boat is the largest to ever do so navigated by artificial intelligence with no humans aboard. A few technical hiccups notwithstanding, its trip is the latest evidence that the future of the high seas could be autonomous. Slowly, self-steering ships are becoming a reality. In Norway, an autonomous battery-powered container vessel is shuttling fertilizer between a factory and a local port, and pending a successful trial, it could be fully certified within the next two years.

Machine Learning (ML) techniques have gained significant traction as a means of improving the autonomy of marine vehicles over the last few years. This article surveys the recent ML approaches utilised for ship collision avoidance (COLAV) and mission planning. Following an overview of the ever-expanding ML exploitation for maritime vehicles, key topics in the mission planning of ships are outlined. Notable papers with direct and indirect applications to the COLAV subject are technically reviewed and compared. Critiques, challenges, and future directions are also identified. The outcome clearly demonstrates the thriving research in this field, even though commercial marine ships incorporating machine intelligence able to perform autonomously under all operating conditions are still a long way off.

Autonomous ships just took a small but important step forward. Hyundai's Avikus subsidiary says it has completed the world's first autonomous navigation of a large ship across the ocean. The Prism Courage (pictured) left Freeport in the Gulf of Mexico on May 1st, and used Avikus' AI-powered HiNAS 2.0 system to steer the vessel for half of its roughly 12,427-mile journey to the Boryeong LNG Terminal in South Korea's western Chungcheong Province. The Level 2 self-steering tech was good enough to account for other ships, the weather and differing wave heights. The autonomy spared the crew some work, of course, but it may also have helped the planet. Avikus claims HiNAS' optimal route planning improved the Prism Courage's fuel efficiency by about seven percent, and reduced emissions by five percent.

Buyers of Volkswagen's luxury cars despair on social media as the ship carrying their orders catches fire in the Atlantic

The world's first fully autonomous ship is set to make its maiden voyage across the Atlantic next month. Inspired by the ship that brought the Pilgrims to North America, 'Mayflower 400' will be guided by artificial intelligence rather than a human crew. If all goes well, it will depart from Plymouth, England on May 15 and arrive at Plymouth, Massachusetts, about 3,000 miles and two weeks later. The original Mayflower, which transported 102 Pilgrims and other passengers, took 10 weeks to reach its destination in 1620. Mayflower 400 was set to embark on its transatlantic cruise last September for the Mayflower's 400th anniversary, but was delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

For the last few years, the name AI is knocking us every day as a part of our life. A smartphone in your hand is also equipped with AI to enhance your experience. Even a selfie is also processed with AI to improve the quality of the image. Big data and AI together are impacting our lives by using our smallest details with our concern to provide us better results. We are being used to such small yet useful applications of AI but there are few applications we may have never imagined to be true this soon.

Amazon Go is the first store where no checkout is required. Customer simply enter the store using the Amazon Go app to browse and take the required products or items they want and then leave. Customer being able to purchase, products without suing a counter or checkout. The following video shows how Self-driving Robot (Delivery Bot and named as YAPE) brings goods directly to you, it uses Facial Recognition to recognize the customer to deliver. It makes delivery fast and easy, bot easily navigates sidewalks. YAPE has a 70 kg loading capacity and can travel 80km on a single charge.

Lockheed Martin has been selected as the main contractor to conduct a study on how to provide the US Navy with large, autonomous ships that can operate for extended periods without a crew. Part of the Navy's Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) competition, Lockheed is working with Portland, Oregon-based shipbuilder Vigor Works, LLC, and will provide program management, platform integration, systems engineering, combat management, automation, and cybernetic expertise. With the biggest costs of building and operating a ship revolving around putting a crew aboard it, the US and other navies are very interested in creating unmanned or man-optional ships that can carry out both routine and extremely hazardous duties, leaving sailors to handle the sort of executive and complex tasks that still require a human touch. These autonomous ships of the future could be anything from small autonomous patrol craft, to sub hunters, to full-blown combat submarines. Such craft could, ideally, leave port on their own, remain at sea for months at a time, and then return autonomously for refit and maintenance.

The Mayflower is taking to the water in Plymouth harbor. It's not the ship that left this southwest England port 400 years ago carrying Pilgrim settlers to America. The sleek vessel being readied Tuesday for its official launch has no passengers, no crew -- but like its predecessor, an ambitious mission. The 50-foot (15-meter) trimaran has "no one on board, no captain, no place to eat, no place to sleep," said Brett Phaneuf, co-director of the Mayflower Autonomous Ship project. The ship is set to follow in its forebear's footsteps by crossing the Atlantic from Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, this time on a marine research trip.

But while the original Mayflower bore 102 passengers to Plymouth Rock, this one will ply the seas for about two weeks next spring with no living souls aboard. Promare, a U.K. ocean-research nonprofit, in partnership with International Business Machines Corp., will unveil this new, fully autonomous Mayflower on Sept. 16 in Portsmouth, the same seaside English town from which its namesake set sail in 1620. The symbolism of sending a crewless, autonomous ship across an ocean in 2021--as automation accelerates the economic divide among American workers--might be a little on the nose, but its creators insist autonomous ships aren't about replacing people. Instead, this technology is intended to serve where crewed voyages are deemed too expensive--or too risky. This is a common refrain among firms building autonomous ships: For the 70% of the Earth's surface covered by water, there are far too few humans and vessels, despite a pressing need for oceanographic data, scientific research, naval patrols and new means of transporting goods.