Amsterdam tests autonomous boats

Small-scale autonomous boat prototypes have been tested in Amsterdam to evaluate their potential to relieve road congestion by ferrying commuters and collecting household waste along the city’s extensive canal network.

The tests concluded Roboat’s second year of research, as part of a five-year collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions.

“This project imagines a fleet of autonomous boats for the transportation of goods and people that can also cooperate to produce temporary floating infrastructure, such as on-demand bridges or stages that can be assembled or disassembled in a matter of hours,” said Carlo R...