Culture
Next Up: Self-Driving Boats, Because of Course
In cities like Amsterdam, “Roboats” could also function as temporary floating infrastructure.
Autonomous cars are barely even here, but in Amsterdam, they’re already moving on to something else: self-driving boats.
As part of a new collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions announced Monday that it will host a major new trial of autonomous boats. Called Roboats—what else?—versions of the new vehicle should hit the Dutch capital’s canals in 2017. Unfolding over five years, the project hopes ultimately to develop a fleet of un-captained boats that can be used for deliveries, transit and leisure along what remain some of the busiest stretches of urban water in the world.