Rolls-Royce Wants Remote Controlled Ships

We’ve all experienced the joy of remote controlling a little toy car, and more recently the drones that now fly the sky are just an extension of that joy. It would seem like this idea is only getting bigger and bigger with car companies now looking at remote controlling their vehicles with automated vehicles and now Rolls-Royce wants to take the concept off the road and build a remote controlled cargo ship by 2020.

The company has adapted to changing times by outlining a strategy where a land-based crew would pilot a ship, controlling it via monitoring drones and VR camera views. The concept would then be for maybe one or more ships to be controlled by a single crew. The idea is that an automated ship without any crew on board could be designed for the bare minimum, without a bridge or living quarters or canteen resulting in a ship purely designed for getting from A to B.

The concept looks to promote the idea quickly with the company looking to develop the remote controlled cargo ships with a launch date of 2020, with fully autonomous boats coming within the next 20 years, ultimately removing humans from the oceans for anything but pleasure cruises and research expeditions.