Finland Funds Autonomous Ship Research
The Finnish government's innovation investment arm, Tekes, said that it is making a multi-year commitment to funding collaborative research and development of autonomous, unmanned ships to ply the world’s oceans in the not-so-distant future.
Tekes said in a statement that this research area is a priority for the Finnish government and would contribute to the nation's competitiveness.
"Digitalization has a strong role in the development of the competitiveness of the Finnish maritime cluster. Autonomous maritime ecosystem is a concrete action of Finnish digitalization strategy and Finnish Marine Industries envisioning," says the statement.
The aim is to provide world's first unmanned maritime products, services and vivid ecosystem by 2025. As a part of the ecosystem, the Ministry of Transport and Communications is committed to enable testing of autonomous vessels in Finland in a flexible manner.
The players in the business ecosystem include global leaders like Rolls Royce as well as numerous innovative ICT companies.
Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, is committed financing autonomous marine ecosystem development and boosting new innovations into markets in the coming years.
"We are especially enthusiastic about colliding our world class ICT start-up scene with strong maritime players. New networks will boost exchanging ideas and create pioneering community for intelligent shipping", says program manager Piia Moilanen from Tekes.
In practice, the initiative will create a common roadmap for reaching autonomous marine operations and enables effective co-operation and coordinated development between industry, research institutes, class societies and authorities. The roadmap creation and implementation is steered by a group of leading industry partners.
