From our slip at Pier 59 at Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River in New York City, the captain of the Boston Whaler 405 Conquest moved his finger on a screen at the helm. An image of our boat moved over to a spot between the two rows of docks.
We cast off the lines, and the autonomous system took over. The triple 600-hp Mercury outboards went in and out of gear on demand, as if an invisible captain was manipulating the joystick at the helm. The boat moved along a path without hitting a dock, a piling or any other object until its position mirrored the one on the multifunction display.
“It will start to advance along that path and continue to monitor, so if something jumped in front of you on that path, the boat would adapt and pause until the object is cleared, or plan a path around it,” says Jason Arbuckle, marine autonomy technical lead for Brunswick Corp.
That’s right. The boat pulled out of the slip by itself and drove to the exact spot on the screen. Then it held itself in position until we were ready to return.
Impressive? No doubt. A little scary? Yeah. But the reality is that autonomous boating is here, and Brunswick plans to have it available to the public in 2025. In corporate speak, the system has yet to be named, but it is past the concept phase and is in development. Brunswick does not yet have retail pricing.
“We select a location where we want the boat to go,” Arbuckle says. “I can stand here, and you’ll see the boat start moving, and I’m not touching anything.”
As evidence of the corporate commitment to move the system forward, the 405 Conquest’s fiberglass hardtop was molded with inserts for the six cameras — or perception centers — that are the system’s foundation. “On a boat like this, we don’t want to sacrifice the design language,” Arbuckle says. The cameras come from Carnegie Robotics Lab, and there are two on the front of the hardtop, two aft and one on each side.
The autonomous operating system is a Brunswick team effort. The corporation owns the protocols that its developers came up with. The positioning was developed by Mercury engineers, and the computing and display in the helm come from Navico. The project is being run at Brunswick’s Mettawa, Ill., headquarters. Even the Freedom Boat Club comes into play, providing data collection at all of its locations.
“One thing you learn about autonomy algorithms is that you have to teach them what everything is,” Arbuckle says. “They’re sensitive to differences in docking, water color, land features. With Freedom Boat Club, it gives us access to different locations where we can go there, select data and teach [the system] the algorithms.”
The dash display is an early version of the user interface that is expected to be streamlined going forward. The size won’t necessarily be smaller, but the finish will likely be refined.
As for the perception suite, the cameras are tied into the location-monitoring devices. Everything is managed by a high-performance computer. It brings in all the inputs and runs optic detection algorithms and route planning. The current version of the computer is about a foot wide, and it’s installed in the cabin furniture.
Once the computer plans the requested route, it sends the commands through the Mercury Vessel Control System to make the maneuvers. The only thing required at the helm is Joystick Piloting for Outboards, which would likely already be there on a boat of this size.
Arbuckle says the difference between the Brunswick project and current competing systems is that they are “level one” autonomy that provides the boat operator with improved situational awareness, but doesn’t give commands to the engines. “The goal with these products is to make things easier and give people more confidence,” Arbuckle says.
He also says that the autonomous system should not prevent a boater from learning basic operating skills, because there will be situations where it cannot be effective, such as fog that prevents the cameras from seeing objects or strong winds. “We certainly advocate learning the basic skills to operate the vessel because there will be situations the system can’t overcome,” Arbuckle says, but he adds that the system will still supply as much information as possible. “We’ll continue to give you the situational awareness of the video feeds at the helm so you can see around you all the time. You still have the joystick, too.”
After the demonstrator boat moved itself to our requested position, Mercury’s Skyhook automatic positioning technology held the boat in place until we asked it to return to the slip. “The perception system is always building a map of what’s around us, monitoring for changes in objects as boats move around or if someone jumps off a dock,” Arbuckle says. “It’s always monitoring, so on the map that’s rendered, we’ll select a space, and the boat will plan a path to it.”
You can follow the boat’s route on a purple path on the screen. When wakes from a boat on the Hudson rolled through the marina, the system accounted for them. “It’s overcoming the waves coming at us right now,” Arbuckle says.
This article was originally published in the November 2023 issue.
