阿姆斯特丹与MIT合力研发无人驾驶游艇

    Amsterdam is well known for its vast waterway, which has a total of 165 canals, with a combined length of over 100km.

    While boats already regularly operate on the waters, the city is now looking to the future of transportation — self-driving boats.

    The Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) has announced a new five-year research plan, under the name “Roboat,” to explore the possibility of autonomous* floating vehicles.

    AMS has collaborated with researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University and Research to create the Roboats.

    Carlo Ratti, a principal investigator from MIT, said: “Imagine a fleet of autonomous boats for the transportation of goods and people. But also think of dynamic and temporary floating infrastructure like on-demand bridges and stages, that can be assembled* or disassembled* in a matter of hours.”

    The boats will also gather data on environmental aspects like water quality, air quality and noise, and provide more efficient ways to clear the canals from floating waste or dredging out* the 12,000 bicycles a year which end up in the Dutch city’s canals.

    The program aims to have a working prototype on the canals by 2017.

    As well as the autonomous boats, the Roboat project will also look to create data-gathering robots to help with public health issues.

    These will be based on work by MIT, which has looked at putting sensors in sewer systems to monitor diseases such as influenza* or diabetes*.

    Arjan van Timmeren, AMS’s scientific director, says the aim is to create a “predictive model for potential* outbreaks.”

    He added that the project will also explore the commercial application of these systems, in the hopes that the technology could be sold to outer cities.

    For example, Roboat is also partnering with the U.S. city of Boston, where sea levels have risen by 25 centimeters since 1921.(SD-Agencies)