Autonomous Ship to Recreate Mayflower Voyage
Artist's rendition: Shuttleworth Design.
A team of Plymouth University in the U.K., autonomous systems builder MSubs and yacht designer Shuttleworth Design have teamed to create the first full-sized, autonomous ship capable of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Mayflower Autonomous Research Ship (MARS) will use wind and solar technology for its proposed voyage, which the companies hope to occur in 2020 to mark the 400th anniversary of the original Mayflower’s voyage from Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts in the new world.
MARS will be a 100-foot trimaran that will also carry a variety of small unmanned aircraft, surface and subsurface systems that it will use to carry out experiments during its voyage, according to Shuttleworth Design.
"MARS will be a genuine world-first, and will operate as a research platform, conducting numerous scientific experiments during the course of its voyage,” says Prof. Kevin Jones, dean of the faculty of science and engineering at Plymouth University. “And it will be a test bed for new navigation software and alternative forms of power, incorporating huge advancements in solar, wave and sail technology. As the eyes of the world follow its progress, it will provide a live educational resource to students, a chance to watch, and maybe participate in history in the making."
The trip could take as little as seven days, although the partners could stretch it to months if they want to use most of the time to collect data.
