Yamaha teases drag-and-drop docking for boats, jet skis

According to the patent application filed by Yamaha Motor, the docking system will take full control of the electronic throttle and shift, as well as the steering, including those for a jet-powered personal watercraft.

All users will need to do is look at a display of the available berths on a screen – how this information is gathered is not explained – and then press on the one they want to pull in to.

The patent drawings show the boat or jet ski can either be nosed in, backed in, or pull alongside.

“For most drivers or users of watercrafts, docking is one of the most stressful operations of the watercrafts,” the patent application says.

“For example, when docking a watercraft, a driver or user (hereinafter merely referred to as a “user”) of the watercraft needs to navigate the watercraft within a marina along an intended course while avoiding obstructs and considering water depths, wind direction and strength, current, etc.

“In recent years, some watercrafts are provided with a docking assist system that helps the user navigate the watercraft to stay on the intended course by compensating for some external forces, such as wind and/or current.

However, the docking assist system merely assists the user to navigate the watercraft, and still requires the user's manual navigation of the watercraft near a target dock.”

Yamaha said some automated docking systems also need land-based sensors, adding to cost and making things complicated for people who use sensors to dock, but are trying to dock in a place where there are no sensors.

“In order to make docking less stressful and give the user an easier boating experience, it is desirable to have an automated docking or auto-docking system that autonomously navigates the watercraft to a target dock and that is provided with an intuitive human-machine interface (HMI),” Yamaha said.

The drawings that accompany the patent show Yamaha’s joystick controller that is currently used for shuffling boats around at low speeds will add an “auto docking” button to activate the system.

The system will then search in a radius around the boat for docking spaces that the user can select from a menu.

Once selected the display changes to a digital image of the dock, with the user simply dragging an icon representing their boat into the available space. The user can even rotate the boat so it can go in forwards, backwards or abeam.

The boat will then tap its GPS-based navigation system to check depths and plan the best route to reach the berth.

The system suggests users may need to have previously used the berth and added it to the system before it will work.

The patent does not say if or when Yamaha plans to launch the new automated docking system.