China Completes Unmanned Ships R&D Project

A research project examining the potential use of unmanned maritime vessels has received unanimous approval from Acceptance Expert Group on July 31, China’s Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) reported.

The project, entitled Unmanned Multifunctional Maritime Ships Research and Development Project, was established in 2012 and implemented by Zhejiang MSA with Wuhan University of Technology. After three years, the project’s development has been has completed, resulting in the award of four national patents.

According to MSA, the project realizes all-day networked sea supervision, intelligent cruise and rescue, motorized multipoint coverage by shore-vessel based detection and control platform managing a certain amount of unmanned cruise and rescue vessels on a low-cost basis, which effectively improved the ability and efficiency in maritime cruise and rescue.

The project found unmanned multifunctional maritime ships to be an international development trend with potential for widespread use, such as in maritime systems, as well as in fishery administration, weather, border defense, military, etc.