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Comment by streamofdigits | Hacker News Reader

(Semi-)Autonomous open sea cargo ships might be an even better use case. One could imagine totally unmanned ships cruising the planet and delivering goods without putting anybody at risk (or subjecting to the long days of confinment). But one might need people on-board for quite some time: eg mechanics when invariably something breaks down

A canal environment is still quite crowded and maybe the economic motivation rather limited but its probably an excellent test bed

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Cargo ships are largely autonomous once underway. They have a small crew of 8-12 members who largely do maintenance, watch, and cook. Then, near shore it's all hands as they prepare the ship for docking.

> 8-12 members who largely do maintenance, watch, and cook

I suppose the "cooking" part can be eliminated once you don't need maintainance and watch :-)

"Watch" is an interesting (and solvable?) challenge. Understanding the sea environment (visually, sonar etc) from the local (ship's) perspective can complement e.g satellite imagery. But there is also e.g. watching against piracy

Maintainance seems the toughest. Unless the engineering is perfected to the point that it is only required at ports.

Most routine maintenance could be done in ports. The problem with that approach is that ships would then be stuck in port longer to finish maintenance work after unloading and loading cargo, which means ports would need more berths and shipping companies would need more expensive ships just to carry the same total load. It's actually cheaper to hire crew to do that preventative maintenance and minor repair work while underway.

Radar, sonar and satellite are good weather equipement though. Sea weed gets stuck on the sonar all the time.

You will still need mechanics to solve things aboard no matter the navigational automation, which allready are on autopilot on open sea.

Watch is not solved and most of our sea rescue services rely on cargo ship crew as first responders. Rescue planes don't have the range for recovery. Planes can't land in blue water. So it comes down to the small crew keeping a sharp look out for someone in distress.

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