A boat carrying a cargo of British oysters across the English Channel has become the world's first ever shipment completed using remote control. Mersea Island molluscs were on-board the 40-foot (12 m) long Sea-Kit vessel heading to Orstend in Belgium and there was not a single human being on-board. It successfully completed the delivery of the 11 pounds (5kg) of shellfish and then made a return journey with some Belgian beer on-board. Myriad technological gadgets and innovations fed data back to a control room in Maldon, Essex where two workers completed the 22-hour trip. The British vessel is equipped with cameras, radar, microphones, thermal imaging and a back-up autonomous system to keep it and other sea-goers safe.

While it may seem that Rolls-Royce is purely a luxury car company, it has been cooking up something completely unexpected: remote-controlled cargo ships. The Rolls-Royce led Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications Initiative (AAWA) has presented its vision at the Autonomous Ship Technology Symposium 2016 in Amsterdam of how remote and autonomous shipping can become a reality. The company is working on virtual decks where land-based crews would control every aspect of the ship. Additionally, there will also be VR camera views and monitoring drones to spot issues humans cannot. Therefore, only requiring one human to steer several boats.

The move to crew-free ships promises more than a few advantages, Rolls says. You wouldn't need a bridge or living quarters, so you'd have much more room for the goods you're hauling. They'd be safer and more efficient, too, since you'd cut out many human errors (not to mention the direct risks from rough weather and pirates) and streamline operations. Robotic ships might cut the number of available jobs, but they would let distant crews handle more complex tasks without being overwhelmed. Some of Rolls' concepts are more Star Trek than real life at the moment (its imagery includes interactive holograms), but this isn't just a theoretical exercise.