An autonomous boat taxi, years in the making, has now made it to the waterways of Amsterdam.
The self-driving boat, dubbed Roboat III, is the creation of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the Senseable City Laboratory, and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions.
First developed and tested in pool environments back in 2015, Roboat has undergone extensive redesigns to become a full-scale, autonomous ‘taxi’ service for city residents.
Last year’s version, Roboat II, was a blocky, eyesore-yellow model, two meters in length, that was able to carry two passengers. Despite its appearance, the technology behind the boat — including sensors and mapping technologies — meant that the boat was safely able to navigate itself for three hours with an error margin of 0.17m.
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