https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/13/16300866/rolls-royce-autonomous-ship-navy

Rolls-Royce has become the latest company to enter the autonomous shipping arena, revealing plans for a 197-foot-long (60m) autonomous vessel that will perform missions including patrolling, surveillance, mine detection, and fleet screening. The company says it’s seeing interest from the world’s major navies into autonomous ships, rather than vessels that are remote controlled. It expects that over the next decade, there will be an introduction of crewed and uncrewed autonomous ships and fleets. (The crewed ships would be larger in size, and used in multi-role missions.) Rolls-Royce began developing uncrewed ship technology in 2013.

Rolls-Royce says it’s using artificial intelligence and sensors to create an intelligent awareness system that will help ships operate safely. Those autonomous support tools include energy management, equipment health monitoring, and predictive and remote maintenance for the autonomous ships.