Falco (pilotless ferry)

2018: Announcement

At the beginning of December, 2018 Rolls-Royce provided as the company approves, "the first-ever completely autonomous ferry". Its opportunities were shown during the trip between Paraynen and Nauvo in Finland.

Today's demonstration proves that the autonomous ship represents not just the concept, and something that will change navigation in modern understanding — the president of division of Rolls-Royce commercial courts Mikael Makinen said.

The ferry became result of the research SVAN project (Safer Vessel with Autonomous Navigation) which Rolls-Royce develops since May, 2018 together with the Finnish state company Finferries. By the beginning of December, 2018 partners tested the vessel within 400 hours on the archipelago  of Turku.

Pilotless Falco ferry

The computer system of pilotless management is implemented in the Falco car ferry 53.8 meters long. It received a huge number of sensors, connected to the software on the basis of artificial intelligence which helps swimming means "be guided" in water and avoid collisions with the objects which are in close proximity.

During the trip from Paraynen to Nauvo the ferry was in completely standalone mode, and on the way back it far off was controlled from the command center located in 50 km. Thus, Rolls-Royce showed that the vessel can float absolutely without participation of the person, and in case of any circumstances remote control can be organized.

Besides, Rolls-Royce and Finferries showed the system of the automatic parking of the ferry which regulates the speed and the direction of the movement of the vessel when it is included into the port.

According to Makinen, the SVAN project shows, how safely and the ships using artificial intelligence technologies can effectively be controlled.^[1]

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