Creating an infrastructure for unmanned water transport
Goal
Reduce the traffic load on the city
Multifunctional use of urban canals Roboat
Project
Roboat Amsterdam is a 5-year study that explores and tests the use of autonomous transportation systems on water.
Over 2 years, the working group has developed design solutions for three areas:
- Waste Collection – the waste management solution focused on the fact that autonomous garbage collection on water would alleviate Amsterdam’s current transportation problems;
- Food delivery – the researchers proposed a system of floating markets that could complement the city’s food network;
- Passenger transportation solutions address land-based public transportation infrastructure congestion by redistributing some of the load to waterborne vessels.
Depending on the destination, the vessel determines the best route and analyzes the situation on the way taking into account the characteristics of canals and bridges.
The ship’s position is determined by LIDAR (Laser Image Detection and Ranging), augmented by cameras and GPS sensors. When the vessel registers an object, it determines its condition and distance. The system is self-learning and adapts its abilities based on the experience of maneuvers
Results
State: easing the burden on surface transportation
Citizens: improving quality of life
Businesses: a new format for conducting commerce.
Amasterdam
December 2017 Visualization of urban channels
January 2018 Develop use cases
March 2018 Study of the city’s infrastructure
April 2018 Study of the current transportation situation
July 2018 Channel mapping in 3D
August 2018 Developing a maneuvering system
October 2018 Public tests of multi subs