AMSTERDAM (AP) — Electric cars, meet your competition: fully autonomous electric boats. These boats are being developed to ply the canals of Amsterdam and other waterways around the world.
The Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are collaborating on the Roboat project, which seeks new ways of navigating boats without a human hand at the wheel.
The 4-meter (13-foot) long Roboats have two orange propellers that are powered by an electric battery. They can go about 4 mph for up to 24 hours.
They are steered remotely by a computer, which processes data from cameras and sensors that scan the areas around the vessel.
Developers are still perfecting the technology.
