As a matter of legal framework, especially considering the international aspect of the voyage, it would likely parallel the ICAO work on unmanned aerial vehicles, with required approval from the Flag and any coastal states thru which such a vessel may pass. And the principles in the link below may be useful food for thought.
Why not just install the system on a manned vessel and observe it while maintaining the ability to overide? Sometimes I feel like this is all I do in the pilot house as it is.
[QUOTE=jdcavo;153250]You made an authoritative statement (loudly, and with more than a touch of condescension). Can you point to anything that supports it? Can you cite an authority that says something has to be manned to be a vessel, or that an unmanned craft is not a vessel? Not just COLREGS, but maritime law generally. The discussion has not been limited to application of the COLREGs, but liability in general.[/QUOTE]
you’ll have to pardon me for not offering exact citations because you know that I am quite capable to locate and reference them…however, I am busy this weekend and do not have adequate time to research this matter. Afterall, the Seahawks are playing tomorrow and I think we all know where priorities lie in this case!
you will be answered in time however…
I believe we all can agree that under all traditional nautical terminology that a vessel left unmanned upon the sea without a form of human control of it would stand the test of being considering derelict. Someday new definitions of a vessel at sea will be accepted by courts but I am certainly of the belief that no court has as of yet, come up with a legal definition of a vessel operating without manning under remote control.
do you have a legal definition or other legal citation to offer to dispute the above?
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[QUOTE=seriously;153256]Why not just install the system on a manned vessel and observe it while maitaining the ability to overide? Sometimes I feel like this is all I do in the pilot house as it is.[/QUOTE]
this certainly makes more sense to prove automation can deliver a vessel across the Atlantic. Full automation that will control a vessel throughout a voyage without human would be very easy to prove that the automation was in control of the vessel continually…it’s called data logging.
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[QUOTE=Glaug-Eldare;153251]c.captain, are you arguing that it’s exempt from the COLREGS and has no obligation to follow any of the rules? That would make a project a lot easier, wouldn’t it![/QUOTE]
absolutely, it would be a derelict vessel or it would be marine debris which no vessel would be required to keep out of way of. Of course, the chances of success would go down considerably in waters with heavy marine traffic.
As a matter of legal framework […] it would likely parallel the ICAO work on unmanned aerial vehicles
A quick glance in the link you provided seems to exclude explicitly:
Fully autonomous aircraft operations are not being considered in this effort, nor are unmanned free balloons nor other types of aircraft which cannot be managed on a real-time basis during flight.
Anything that is not remotely controlled but is fully autonomous (‘debris’ as classified by ccaptain) seems to the ICAO can not be integrated into non-segregated airspace.
So given the legal realities maybe I should have phrased my question:
Debris is about to be launched into the Atlantic that can (somewhat) control its course towards Ireland/UK. How would you increase its chances of survival and lessen its chances of hitting (and damaging) anything in its path? (And the answer: “don’t launch it” has been noted, thanks ccaptain)
The OP is apparently participating in the Micro Transat – a competition for the first to get a 4m (or less) unmanned sailing vessel across the Atlantic. So it’s not just one, but a swarm of these devices, which will be at sea. Oh, joy.
The organizers advise the competitors, recklessly in my opinion, that there is no legal problem, because an unmanned vessel is legally a [I]buoy[/I]. How do you like that? See: http://www.microtransat.org/faq.php
I’m a software engineer working for a company called Liquid Robotics. We make an autonomous seagoing robot that is used for a lot of different tasks. One way to think of our robots is as a weather buoy that installs itself. I wrote the code that does collision avoidance. It’s been deployed for about a year and has worked very well, even in complex multi-vessel situations. We’ve had lots of collision opportunities that have been avoided. As far as COLREGS go, we consider ourselves to be flotsam: no one will ever get out of the way to avoid us, so we assume that it’s always our responsibility to yield right-of-way. If a collision occurs, we’re the one that gets trashed: colliding with one of our bots is about as dangerous to a boat as colliding with a drifting surfboard. There are some videos online at https://vimeo.com/jamesgosling/videos - some show simulations from before the collision avoidance was deployed, some show actual incidents. There’s one that shows how our robots work: you can think of them as sailboats whose sails are in the water instead of the air 
my sentiments exactly.
The organizers advise the competitors, recklessly in my opinion, that there is no legal problem, because an unmanned vessel is legally a buoy. How do you like that?
I’d sure like to see that argued in a court but who cares since the great majority of these model toy boats will vanish from the planet without a trace but speaking of courts, if they are made of plastic or contain plastic in them, then they become a major MARPOL violation! I say sue the owners of these hazards to navigation unless that are certified to be 100% non plastic construction! HA…I’ve got you on that one DrSAR! Try to get yourself out of that box…HMMM?
According to the link, one of last year’s boats was fielded by the USNA.
[QUOTE=catherder;153364]According to the link, one of last year’s boats was fielded by the USNA.[/QUOTE]
sure was…and they probably got $3B in DARPA money for their stoopid toy
According to a source involved with the Microtransat program, the U.S. Coast Guard was consulted as well.
“Their unofficial view was that if the boat was under eight feet it was not a vessel. They went further and told us that if the boat collected data like an oceanographic data buoy and was listed in the Notice to Mariners, then that was sufficient.”
In addition, it seems the idea of a buoy is not so far-fetched. NOAA’s Global Drifter Program consists of over 1200 buoys that are currently drifting around in the ocean collecting data.
[QUOTE=rob;153407]In addition, it seems the idea of a buoy is not so far-fetched. NOAA’s Global Drifter Program consists of over 1200 buoys that are currently drifting around in the ocean collecting data.[/QUOTE]
and how exactly can the position of these bouys be broadcast in NTMs if they are drifting or are they transmitting AIS signals to make their presence known to vessels?
I worked in industrial bakery with emtrol robots that stowed 2000 lb troughs of dough while they rose. They had to know where the troughs were and whether they were full/empty or which location they were stored in (there were 6 on each level and 5 levels high and right and left missions to complete). That was 60 places to store the dough. Almost every shift I worked I had to shut the controller down as it had a “failed mission” flashing on the screen of the remote control cabinet screen. Then do the mission manually and update mission data before restoring automatic mode. It would be quite a job to go fetch a ship in the middle of the Atlantic in a storm.
Don’t ever work in a bakery .
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People fear autonomous ships (for some very good reasons), but the likelihood that such a thing will come to pass in (near) future is slim to none. Imagine the regulatory hurdles to pass.
Think of all the redundancy and safety features you would need. An owner would have to make plenty of money on that ship before breaking even. By the time it becomes profitable, it will be near the end of it’s life.
Think NS Savannah…nuclear powered, could go on for years w/o refueling, but could not make enough money to stay viable.
Just my 2 cents.
The Savannah was half cargo, half passenger in an age when passenger ships were dying. At that time had she been wholly cargo she may have done well.
[QUOTE=DeckApe;153464]The Savannah was half cargo, half passenger in an age when passenger ships were dying. At that time had she been wholly cargo she may have done well.[/QUOTE]
The Savannah was not the only nuclear powered cargo ship built around the world and none of them proved to be a commercial success. Port restrictions (due them being nuclear powered) alone make these vessels white elephants. It was an issue when the Savannah was built and has only gotten worse regulatory wise.
[QUOTE=DeckApe;153464]The Savannah was half cargo, half passenger in an age when passenger ships were dying. At that time had she been wholly cargo she may have done well.[/QUOTE]
The costs to maintain a nuclear powered ship are generally much higher, even for non-nuclear systems, than a conventionally powered vessel. And see Chief Seadog’s comment below. There are to this day restrictions on where a nuclear vessel can call. Those reasons alone would jack up cargo costs and make the ship noncompetitive.
[QUOTE=catherder;153462]People fear autonomous ships (for some very good reasons), but the likelihood that such a thing will come to pass in (near) future is slim to none. Imagine the regulatory hurdles to pass.
Think of all the redundancy and safety features you would need. An owner would have to make plenty of money on that ship before breaking even. By the time it becomes profitable, it will be near the end of it’s life.
Think NS Savannah…nuclear powered, could go on for years w/o refueling, but could not make enough money to stay viable. .[/QUOTE]
to me it always comes down to what happens when there is a machinery casualty aboard or worse a fire? how can you fully automate being able to respond to those circumstances short of a full shut down?
[QUOTE=c.captain;153477]to me it always comes down to what happens when there is a machinery casualty aboard or worse a fire? how can you fully automate being able to respond to those circumstances short of a full shut down?[/QUOTE]
And that’s where the regulatory issues will arise for these things. I can’t forsee any port state or classification society signing off on such a vessel.
I visited the Naval Academy today and talked with one of the professors that is involved in the “Sailbot” program. I can assure you, the boat/vessel/buoy they have created for the Microtransat poses zero navigational threat to anything. It weighs about 55 pounds, its hull speed is 2.5 knots under perfect conditions and is small enough to but in the trunk of your car.
There are other automated “Sailbots” by other universities however, which are much larger, heavier, faster and most definitely would pose a threat.
The question still stands though… Who would be held responsible if one of these automated “sailbots” caused damage while underway?
The IMO is crunching this question at the moment and I’ll fill you in on what they tell us.