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INSIGHTS such as dredging. We are selling to both commercial and doesn’t mean unmanned. Would you agree with that assessment? Why, or why not? government markets.

We agree, autonomous does not mean unmanned. Au-

Where do you see the greatest opportunity for au- tonomous is an aspect of an advanced vessel control system. tonomous waterborne operations? What’s the next big

Manned, reduced manning, or unmanned is an operational thing? Why? decision. We build the technology that enables safe and

Autonomous Navigation & Advanced Situational productive machine-driven navigation and control of the

Awareness; these are the next big things and why we are vessel, but a human operator remains in command, mean- focused on them. I say “next” even though we offer them ing that they plan the missions and monitor as necessary. now because today it’s the innovators and very early adopt-

That operator can be on board or remote from the vessel.

ers that are trying the technology but within the next few years there will be a tipping point of demand and these

What is the greatest distance today that one of your technologies will be on the road to becoming a standard autonomous systems can be controlled by another vessel/person? Must that control be ‘line-of-sight?’ part of all vessels. Why?, because of the leap in produc- tivity, performance, and safety offered by these systems, For demonstration purposes we’ve conducted a number moving marine operations up the ladder of modernity of transcontinental and transoceanic operations (mean- to reduce our annual accident rate, both in commercial ing that the human operator is one side of the continent and recreational, improve on-time performance, and re- or ocean with the autonomous vessel on the other side duce operational expenses. Ultimately, this will enable new – California/Boston, or Denmark/Boston); however, in types of operations and business on water that are imprac- most current actual applications the operator will be lo- tical with established technologies. cated within a few miles. Most of the systems that we sell are integrated with IP radio for line-of-sight as well as 4G

It has been said that the dirty little secret behind communications so as long as the vessel is within 4G range autonomous marine operations is that autonomous the operator can be anywhere with connectivity.

October 2019 16 MN