Jul 24 (economist.com) - Captain kuwahara satoru’s tanker is manoeuvring through Yokohama harbour. Dolphins leap in the distance; a cruise ship slides under a glittering bridge.
He issues an instruction via the radio, and suddenly the ship is navigating congested waters off Singapore. Offered a turn at the helm, your correspondent accidentally sets the tanker on a collision course. Mr Kuwahara quickly steers away from danger. Then he flips a switch and all the windows go dark. He walks out of the simulator into the 24th-floor offices of Japan Marine Science (jms), a shipping consultancy.
jms is using the simulator to develop algorithms to help ships steer themselves. It is one of the many Japanese firms that is experimenting with the maritime equivalent of self-driving cars. The Nippon Foundation, a philanthropic group, has put ¥3.4bn ($31m) into a consortium trying to develop the necessary technology. Giant Japanese shipping firms like Mitsui osk Lines (mol) and Nippon Yusen Kaisha (nyk) have been working on autonomous ships since 2016. (Similar efforts are under way in China, South Korea and Europe.)
