Roboat: World's first autonomous watercraft

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) along with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) have started the world’s first major research project on autonomous floating vessels in metropolitan areas.

The project called Roboat, will be conducted by researchers from MIT, Delft University of Technology (TUD) and Wageningen University and Research (WUR). It is a five-year program and has a budget of €25 million. The first tests will take place in Amsterdam, which will primarily be ferrying goods and commuters.

 “Imagine a fleet of autonomous boats for the transportation of goods and people,” says Carlo Ratti, Professor at MIT and principal investigator in the Roboat-program, “but also think of dynamic and temporary floating infrastructure like on-demand bridges and stages, that can be assembled or disassembled in a matter of hours.”

The research, with a €25 million budget, is set in Amsterdam but aims to become a reference study for many urban areas around the globe. “It is a fantastic opportunity for Amsterdam,” says the city’s alderman and vice mayor Kajsa Ollongren. “To have the world’s most prominent scientists work on solutions with autonomous boats in this way is unprecedented, and most fitting for a city where water and technology have been linked for ages.”

Researchers hope to launch the first prototypes of craft in Amsterdam in 2017.