In cooperation with Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding and Furuno Electric, the MOL Group has announced that they have formed a consortium to apply to the Nippon Foundation to fund demonstration voyages to test underlying technologies for autonomous sailing within the fiscal year 2020. The consortium has been developing technologies for autonomous sailing, and plan to conduct demonstration voyages of their autonomous sailing operation system, from unberthing to berthing. With the support from Nippon Foundation, the demonstration tests will start in 2020. The autonomous vessels seek to further enhance safe operation by using new underlying technologies, and reduce crewmembers’ workload.
