'AI-Powered' Automated DOCKING Systems For Pleasure Boats -- Super Cool.

 

 

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I happened to see the above video on CNBC a couple of days ago. It amused me. 

I, 25+ years ago, was an avid boater & used to own multiple boats at any given time. I even had a delivery system where we delivered take-out food to islands and sail boats by boat. It was called 'Waiters on Water' (WOW). Hence, my e-mail even now: wow.com.

I will readily confess: I wasn't great at docking (unless I was real familiar with the dock). I got better (of course) with time & practice. A system like this would have made me look real good & taken a lot of stress off me. These systems are expensive now -- HATE to think what they would have cost in the late 1990s. Plus, the computers needed might not have fitted into a small boat then.

This is strictly NOT 'AI' per se. It definitely is compute intensive but doesn't require that much analytical processing. Computers have been landing planes, automatically, since the 1970s.

That said, I think docking a boat is a tad more involved than landing a plane!

A plane lands on a solid, fixed surface. Wind is the only real variable. On the other hand, when docking a boat you need to contend with tides and the wake from other boats. But, in the end, just more number crunching.

Cute. I wanted YOU to know about it. Check out the video. There are others too. 😇