Development of remotely operated unmanned boat with long-range Wi-Fi

Remotely monitored and operated unmanned vessels are effective for the working environment improvement of vessel crew, the solution of crew shortage, and the efficiency of marine survey. However, the development of unmanned vessels is delayed. One of factors is the communication problem. A bit rate of the current maritime communication using the satellite communication is about several hundred kbps from vessels. Therefore, this bit rate is insufficient for remote monitoring and operation. To solve this problem, a use of a long-range Wi-Fi communication is proposed. In this paper, the unmanned system capable of remote monitoring and operation with long-range Wi-Fi is developed and examined at Tokyo bay.