Autonomous

Back in 2019, Bosch and Mercedes were granted a special permit for an automated parking system operated without human supervision. Now the partnership has been given the official nod to operate Level 4 automated valet parking on a commercial basis.

It was just this week that we heard about the SPD1, a spider-inspired robot designed to inspect sewer lines. Well, it looks like the bot won't be alone down there, as the recently announced Joey robot is designed to do exactly the same thing.

US military contractor Anduril has signed a US$100 million contract with the Australian Navy, to design and deliver three iterations of an Extra Large Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (XL-AUV). These drones will be as big as buses, but not watertight.

Researchers have developed an ultra-small, ultra-thin LiDAR device that splits a single laser beam into 10,000 points covering an unprecedented 180° field of view. It's capable of 3D depth-mapping an entire hemisphere of vision in a single shot.

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology are working on a new autonomous search and rescue system made up of a marine vessel that can launch a fleet of fixed-wing drones to scout a predefined area, along with live-feed quadcopters.

Norway's Argeo has launched the first uncrewed survey and inspection vessel based on the Mariner X platform from Maritime Robotics. The Argus is expected to undertake mapping and inspection operations for offshore wind projects.

Following a number of technical setbacks, the Mayflower autonomous research vessel has successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean, clocking up 3,500 miles and arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on June 5.

An huge natural gas tanker has become the first large ship to make an ocean passage of more than 10,000 km under autonomous control. During its record-breaking run, the 122,000-tonne Prism Courage was able to locate and avoid other ships over 100 times.

It would cost a lot of money to send a boatload of marine scientists across the Atlantic Ocean, all of them conducting research along the way. That's where the Oceanus will come in, as plans call for it to do the job without any crew aboard.

China christened a remarkable new 290-foot (88-m) 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.