Docking a boat is a little like parking a vehicle. Sometimes it can be tight and a little tricky. While a number of cars and trucks are equipped with technology that assists with, or even completely handles the chore, a growing number of commercial and recreational vessels are now pulling into docks on their own.
A new partnership between marine giant Brunswick Corporation and tech company Apex.AI aims to ratchet up docking, and other autonomous capabilities through advanced technologies similar to those driving today’s software-defined vehicles.
Brunswick, which owns 60 marine brands such as Boston Whaler and Sea-Ray, is in the midst of a long-range plan to increase the autonomous capabilities of its vessels through a strategy called ACES— Autonomy, Connectivity, Electrification, Shared Access.
Its new partnership with Apex integrates Brunswick autonomy systems with Apex’s middleware, very simply, to increase functionality and performance as the company pursues its ACES strategy.
Brandon Ferriman, autonomy & ADAS programs director, Brunswick Corporation.
“We have a system designed right now for auto docking, but what happens when I want to make a more basic system for a pontoon boat and I need more simple sensors, maybe just mono cameras instead of stereo cameras, or on the other side, I want to do a more technical system that operates those autonomy features,” said Brandon Ferriman, Brunswick autonomy & ADAS programs director in an interview. “I need something that looks further, so being able to substitute the sensors in that, having that robust middleware, gives us that flexibility.”
Apex CEO Jan Becker explained his company’s middleware acts as a bridge between incoming data and the software running a system, all the while boosting performance, doing so in a “safe and reliable way so that the software doesn’t crash and fulfills safety and security requirements.”
Autonomous, or automatic docking, is a feature that’s been available for several years with the two terms basically synonymous, said Ferriman. However, he said, integrating Apex’s middleware into the Brunswick system, enhances the capabilities of its autonomous docking feature.
“When you enter into a marina it’s seeing everything around it and starts to build a map in front of you on the screen and it’s using AI elements,” explained Ferriman. “If you come to places often it has a memory of that place and now it renders faster because it only looks for differences—was a boat there yesterday it’s not here today, that kind of stuff. It might add real-time monitoring.”
While sparing recreational boaters the chore of docking their craft, commercial mariners have been employing autonomous features including self-driving for some time.
Sea-going tug Nellie Bly during a stop in Copenhagen, Denmark during a more than 1,000 mile journey … [+]
In 2021, a tugboat equipped by Boston-based Sea Machines Robotics, completed a voyage of more than 1,000 miles from Hamburg, Germany, around Denmark, operating autonomously more than 96% of the time.
Both Ferriman and Becker liken advances in maritime autonomy technology with the shift in the automobile industry to more computerized, or software-defined vehicles.
Indeed, Ferriman, who once worked at auto suppliers TRW and ZF, and Becker, who leads Apex as its middleware is increasingly used in the auto industry, say that experience informs the move to software-defined vessels.
Jan Becker, CEO and co-founder, Apex.AI.
“It’s really substantially not different to a driver assistance system in a car in developing and launching such a system into a market,” said Becker. “Once you have the software-defined basis in the boat and the right hardware, there are ample opportunities down the road to deploy more software-defined systems.”
“In the marine space we have these more advanced propulsion systems, these autonomy features,” added Ferriman. “There’s the beginning of the electrification wave now here too, and all those battery management systems and software that’s going to be involved there.”
The commercial launch for vessels with autonomous docking under Brunswick’s brands is scheduled for 2025, according to Ferriman who pointed out the company also plans to market the technology to other boat makers.
The public will have a chance to see the self-docking systems in action at a series of demonstrations ahead of the launch, Ferriman said.
Autonomous docking is just the beginning of a voyage for the recreational maritime industry as it seeks to discover where the technology will take it, according to Ferriman who declared,“We haven’t really fully defined an autonomous boat yet, but continue to see how can we involve more autonomy into features expressing the next generation systems.”
