In Hamburg, presented drone to deliver goods by sea: a robotic barge with an electric motor

Amazon was probably the first company to introduce a fully viable project of delivering goods over short distances by air using quadrocopter drones. True, lawmakers have banned the use of quadcopters to deliver goods within the city, but they don’t give up at Amazon and continue to work on the project.

In addition, similar work is underway to create an automatic system for the delivery of goods by sea. The project is being carried out by the research company DNV GL, which presented the first results of work at the maritime technology exhibition in Hamburg.
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Development of DNV GL - automatic barge, without a team, with an electric motor. This barge is capable of transporting 100 standard TEU containers over relatively short distances, at a speed of 6 knots. Since there is no crew on the barge, it does not need any rescue equipment, cabins, or any other infrastructure that is characteristic of a ship with a crew of sailors.

The maintenance of a barge requires far less money than the maintenance of a regular ship. Consequently, with similar terms and volume of cargo delivery, the sea drone will cost the company-owner much cheaper than a ship with a crew. Operating expenses, including wages, various kinds of insurance, food, rescue equipment - are reduced several times. According to the developers of the project (by the way, its name is ReVolt), a robotic barge will cost the shipowner a million dollars a year cheaper than a similar in terms of carrying capacity (or, if we use marine terms, displacement) and other parameters of a diesel ship.

ReVolt causes minimal damage to the environment due to the lack of a diesel engine and the same team.



If anyone is interested in technical details, here is a document in pdf .