Hyundai to tease autonomous boat system at Fort Lauderdale
Hyundai wants recreational boats to be able to drive themselves, and is ready to show the technology to the worldHyundai, a company known for its cars and trucks but also its heavy ships, will tease its autonomous technology for recreational boats at this month’s Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.
Little is known about Hyundai’s system, called “Avikus”, ahead of its official North American debut, although it appears to borrow some of the automated parking ideas from its automotive division.
A short video on the Hyundai Avikus website shows a boat owner looking at a marina on his smartphone. He taps on a vacant mooring, and the vision cuts to a large sports yacht backing itself into the berth.
The technology being developed for recreational boating applications is called aiBoat, an acronym for “Avikus intelligent BOat AuTonomous Solution”.
Hyundai’s aim for the system is to develop it to autonomously plan a dock-to-dock route and navigate autonomously using artificial intelligence-based obstacle detection and collision avoidance to dock and undock.
The system will have a couple of important outcomes, with the first using cameras to identify hazards and to allow the skipper to keep a watch over things via smartphone, and assisting with docking and undocking rather than taking control.
The second outcome will allow the Avikus system to judge distances and sense everything around the boat, opening the door to hands- and eyes-free operation.
The longer-term goal, though, is to allow skippers to program a trip to a remote anchorage and let the boat handle the journey.
However, it appears as though the skipper will have to “teach” the boat’s artificial intelligence system, which will need “deep learning” to understand what makes an on-water hazard, and how to identify and then keep track of it.
The system appears to be based on a combination of radar, laser-based lidar, stereo cameras and satellite navigation and will be intelligent enough to detect moving objects such as other boats, and steer a course around them.
A trial last year allowed a boat using the Avikus system to travel for 10km along South Korea’s Pohang Canal with no intervention from the skipper for the entire 40-minute duration.
The test boat relied on 10 sensors to help it navigate the canal.
Avikus was created by Hyundai last year to develop autonomous technology for its shipbuilding division, and is the company’s first attempt to enter the recreational boating industry.
The 2022 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show runs from October 26-30.
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