Volvo yachts will soon be able to park automatically!

On the road, you can knock somebody else out of the shoes with an autonomous parking assistant today barely. Many luxury cars dominate to get into a parking space without the help of the driver the feat. However, the competent algorithm also does not take into account very many variables: the street, the curb, and the other parked cars are so solid objects. Much more difficult exercise, however, is on the water. For there shall wind and waves that the various boats move even if the engine is off. For the captains of yachts docking at the jetty is therefore usually the most difficult task. but in the future, they can have recourse to technical assistance.

It is with the most difficult maneuvers on the water

Because Volvo has developed a system that allows yachts - like cars - can drive into a gap between two other boats completely independently. The technique is intended to be able to react in fractions of a second to any change in external conditions. Volvo Penta complexity you are well aware: "It should Dock is one of the most severe control maneuvers on a boat - errors can embarrassing, expensive and dangerous," explains Björn Ingemanson, president of the subsidiary. the parking assistant for yachts in the port of Gothenburg was first presented to the public. There lay a yacht actually securely between two racing sailors from Volvo. The external conditions, however, were also to master quite well.

The human helmsman must stand ready

Customers should have access to the new technology from 2020. Completely off the hook, however, the captain cannot steal even. For it is not is a fully autonomous technology. Rather, always a human helmsman must stand ready to intervene in case of problems immediately. Volvo has made in the past repeatedly with unusual projects in the field of autonomous control of vehicles attention. As a self-propelled truck of the group went already through an underground mine in Sweden and it will be on a working autonomous garbage truck, The collected in these experiments expertise could in the long term then the buyers of Volvo cars benefit - through ever-improving driver assistance systems.