Autonomous

China christened a remarkable new 290-foot ship last week – the world's first semi-autonomous drone carrier. It'll carry, launch, recover and co-ordinate the actions of more than 50 other autonomous aerial, surface and underwater vehicles.

Several groups in Japan have been demonstrating fully autonomous ships in the last few months, and the latest, a 95-m container ship, has just completed a 790-km autonomous voyage starting and ending in the heavily congested waters of Tokyo Bay.

Colorado's Lightning eMotors is adding Level 2 and Level 4 autonomous capabilities to electric medium-duty commercial vehicles thanks to a partnership with Virginia's Perrone Robotics, and has already announced its first customer.

Back in 2020, Open Ocean Engineering launched an autonomous vessel designed to clear plastic waste from local waterways. After partnering with Razer last year for a radical redesign, a sleeker Clearbot has now started patrolling Hong Kong waters.

In a typical sailboat race, the course is marked with a series of buoys that have to be anchored to the seabed, and which may get pushed around by winds or currents. MarkSetBot addresses those problems, with internet-connected robotic buoys.

NVIDIA has been lending its expertise in computing to the world of autonomous vehicles for some time now, and a newly announced platform called Drive Map is designed improve the safety of these vehicles as they hit the streets.

In order to keep running at peak efficiency, solar panels regularly have to be cleaned of accumulated dust and other debris. Such panels can be difficult to reach, though, which is why the Helios system uses not one but two drones to do the job.

When it comes to underwater robots, some tasks are easy to automate, while others are best handled by manual remote control. The Cuttlefish offers the best of both worlds, plus it cleverly changes orientation when using its two manipulator arms.

According to Israeli startup Tevel Aerobotics, there is a severe shortage of workers available to pick fruit at orchards. That's why the company is developing an alternative, in the form of autonomous flying drones that do the job.

While robotic laparoscopic surgical systems do make certain procedures safer and less invasive, those systems are still operated by human surgeons. Now, however, a surgical robot has performed a delicate operation entirely on its own.

Much as we may like pigeons, they can make quite a mess of buildings and other structures, potentially posing a health hazard. According to new research, autonomous drones may be ideal for harmlessly chasing the birds away.

Partially due to labor shortages, autonomous lawnmowers are becoming increasingly popular. The Dexter robotic system offers an alternative to buying a whole new "smart" mower, as it can be added to existing mowers in order to make them autonomous.