“Four centuries and one year after the Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England, on a historic sea journey to America, another trailblazing vessel with the same name has set off to retrace the voyage.
“This Mayflower, though, is a sleek, modern robotic ship that is carrying no human crew or passengers. It’s being piloted by sophisticated artificial intelligence technology for a trans-Atlantic crossing that could take up to three weeks, in a project aimed at revolutionizing marine research.”
– Urooba Jamal. “Robotic ship sets off to retrace the Mayflower's journey.” Associated Press. June 15, 2021.
Today, June 15, 2021, the new Mayflower, a fully autonomous ship, left Plymouth Harbor in southwestern Britain Tuesday to retrace the original’s 5,000-kilometer voyage.
If successful, the 15-meter Mayflower 400 would be the largest autonomous vessel to cross the Atlantic. The $1.3 million ship was built by a nonprofit marine research organization named ProMare in partnership with the computer-tech giant IBM. It is powered by a combination of wind and solar energy, with a back-up diesel generator.
You say, “So what?” Actually, this voyage is set to be quite a unique, modern feat of discovery. The Mayflower 400 is designed to test a variety of different technologies, as well as research the ocean. Computing and artificial intelligence systems supplied by IBM help it make decisions at sea without human help.
The Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) is a highly innovative project to design, build and sail the world's first full-sized, fully autonomous unmanned ship across the Atlantic Ocean.
A range of equipment including cameras and radar allow the craft to sense the world around it and detect hazards. The Mayflower’s AI captain can take in information from the ship’s camera plus its radar, IBM’s weather service as well as coastal maps and the telemetry broadcast by ships through their automatic identification systems.
The AI crew has been highly trained, too. Both the “captain” and a “navigator” have been versed in the rules of avoiding collisions at sea. Using a digital simulation – a sort of twin of the ocean – researchers threw images in front of the AI captain’s virtual cameras to teach it what to do in different situations.
(“New Robot ‘Mayflower' Ship Begins Voyage Recreating Original Route. Voice of America News. June 15, 2021.)
This sleek new vessel will carry experiments instead of people, and has more room for experiments because it has been designed without sleeping quarters, a galley or a bathroom. In fact, up to 700kg of experiments can be housed in modular compartments inspired by the design of the payload bay of a space shuttle.
The vessel is loaded with instruments to measure ocean health, including a "tongue" to taste seawater chemicals, and an acoustic payload to listen for whales and dolphins.
The Mayflower 400 will also do pollution sampling while documenting water chemistry. On board will be a holographic microscope for scanning water samples for microplastics — bits of plastic 5mm or less that are harmful to ocean life.
The Mayflower 400 will also be able to study sea levels and measure wave height.
The ship’s AI systems enable it to change course on its own if, for example, a science experiment finds something that merits further investigation. Don Scott, who is one of the lead engineers on the Mayflower project, said the AI captain will have the ability to direct operations as needed, “which is a really key distinction that separates this from other types of platforms.”
(“New Robot ‘Mayflower' Ship Begins Voyage Recreating Original Route. Voice of America News. June 15, 2021.)
The voyage is planned for roughly three weeks. The Mayflower sea drone will sail through the Isles of Scilly and over the site of the lost Titanic to land in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as the colonists on the first Mayflower did more than 400 years ago.
ProMare co-founder and project director Brett Phaneuf, who originally built submarines and has extensive experience with robotics and underwater systems, told The Associated Press he sees practical applications for the technology used in the Mayflower 400.
“I think you'll start seeing it in short hauls, water taxis and ferries, where you can reduce the crew and increase the safety, and maybe get to a point in a few years where they're just fully autonomous systems,” he said.
(“New Robot ‘Mayflower' Ship Begins Voyage Recreating Original Route.” Voice of America News. June 15, 2021.)
YOU CAN JOIN THE CREW AND TRACK THE MISSION
The voyage website tells us Mayflower 400 UK is an honest, broad and inclusive commemoration of the ship’s sailing from England to America and its often challenging legacy. It tells stories of persecution, loss and oppression as well as exploring the themes of migration, humanity and freedom that underpin its place in history.
The ambitious cultural programme highlights the experiences of different ethnic groups both in history and today, working in tandem with the Wampanoag Nation, the very people who once stood alongside the Mayflower’s passengers but eventually saw their lands and homes brutally taken from them.
Everyone is invited to explore these events, exhibitions, productions and projects and the people behind them throughout this website.
Perhaps the most unique part of the mission is that anyone can access accurate information on the Internet. The website is “Mayflower 400: 1620-2020” at The Mayflower – Mayflower 2020 Anniversary | Mayflower 400 | Mayflower (mayflower400uk.org)
And the site features interactive design at Mayflower Autonomous Ship (mas400.com) where you can actually …
Visit Mission Control – View live data from MAS – from weather, to speed, to available energy
View Live Webcams – See live video streaming in from the ship's onboard cameras – even from the middle of the ocean, and
Track the Mayflower – Follow the ship on its various missions with live location data.
History Refresher
“On September 6, 1620, the Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England, and headed for America. By the time the Pilgrims had left England, they had already been living onboard the ships for nearly a month and a half.
“The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6, until Cape Cod was sighted on 9 November 1620. The first half of the voyage went fairly smoothly, the only major problem was sea-sickness. But by October, they began encountering a number of Atlantic storms that made the voyage treacherous.
“Several times, the wind was so strong they had to just drift where the weather took them, it was not safe to use the ship's sails. The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia, which at the time included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York.
“As the Mayflower approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose on November 9. The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation. However, as the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked.
“The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south, they would just stay and explore Cape Cod. They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation. On December 25, 1620, they had finally decided upon Plymouth, and began construction of their first buildings.”
“Voyage of the Mayflower.” Caleb Johnson's MayflowerHistory.com. 1994-2020,)
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