«It seems that the fashion for» parking sensors is taking over the yacht industry.» Barely a month after Raymarine announced its intention to install such smart systems on French boats from Prestige Yachts, Japanese company Yanmar has introduced its own counterpart «smart mooring device on the Asian market.
According to International Boat Industry, Yanmar's development was created in collaboration with JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) and it seems to claim to be «cooler» than the Raymarine DockSense.
While the Europeans only help the captain to moor, the Japanese in love with robotization have made the boat to moor itself, i.e. without any human intervention at all.
Yanmar's system uses kinematic real-time satellite positioning technology RTK - GNSS 2. To ensure extreme positioning accuracy, it is enhanced by a proprietary digital retransmission system. A few extra sensors and the boat can be guided to the right place at the berth without any fear.
It is assumed that in the future, the system will be actively used for work in hazardous waters, marine research and on«smart» fishing trawlers. Owners of charter yachts will also benefit, as they will no longer have to worry about their boats being damaged by inexperienced captains. Nevertheless, the emergence of the Japanese automatic mooring system on private yachts is only the first - though fastest-growing - application of this technology.
On the market in the free sale of Japanese development will appear after 2020.
The robot projects Yanmar has developed include a machine that can automatically plant rice and a robotic tractor.
