The European Union (EU) is funding a project with eight partner companies to build robotic-type ships capable of traveling completely without the use of sailors or crewmembers.

The concept of sailorless ships was first brought to light following an outlined vision from Rolls Royce earlier this year, and aims to eliminate most of the problems involved with human-controlled ships. Rolls Royce released a rendering of the concept, which can be seen in the image above.

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There are increasing numbers of ships launched everyday within the trade industry. Costs to operate and maintain these ships are becoming very expensive with labor costs being the highest expense. Robotic ships would essentially cut out all labor costs entirely.

The demand for crewmembers and labor workers are increasing, but the supply of these labor workers are also decreasing as fewer people are willing spend weeks at a time on the sea.

Most importantly, according to reports, human error contributes to about 75 percent of all accidents at sea. If ships were implemented with advanced automatic steering and mechanisms to easily navigate around any potential obstacles, then accidents would drastically decrease as well.

Some of this technology is already implemented in ships on a small scale, but in order for ships to successfully operate without crewmembers, the ships will need more intelligent computers with powerful processing power and very accurate sensors and systems.

The ships will also need to be built with engines that need less attention, which may involve using lighter fuels or even natural gas.   

Project MUNIN aims to evaluate and analyze these hurdles including any other issues that may be involved in bringing the concept of robotic ships to a reality. According to Scandinavian research organization SINTEF, that reality could come within the next 20 years. 

TagsProject MUNIN, Robotic ships, European Union, Rolls Royce, SINTEF