aFerry - An integrated autonomy system for on-demand, all-electric and autonomous passenger ferries

The aFerry project demonstrated an autonomous passenger ferry over the city canal in Trondheim and developed the business plan for a commercializing entity of the concept. This is a significant milestone in the development of autonomous passenger transportation at sea, adressing a global challenge in the area of urban water transportation. Today, passenger ferries are based on traditional ship design with some basic sensors, operator-managed motion control systems and several human operators. Traffic is organized by schedules and fixed plans, often made 6-12 months in advance. These operations are costly and financed by a combination of public and private organizations. This project laid the foundation for the realization of on demand, all-electric and autonomous passenger ferries and water taxis, which are flexible, environmentally friendly and cost effective alternatives to the current solutions, reducing commuting time and improving life quality in congested cities. Technologywise the project focused on the verification of the autonomy system, meaning situational awareness, navigation and collision avoidance functions. The integrated autonomy system was successfully demonstrated over 60 continuous canal crossings with NTNU's ferry protype milliAmpere. Achieving this level of autonomy in vessels transporting people requires the highest safety standards as well as societal trust. The project collaborated therefore with the regulatory and assurance authorities.

The aFerry project demonstrated the situational awareness and collision avoidance functions of a ferry autonomy system with help of the NTNU prototype milliAmpere in the Trondheim canal. The results of this project lay a foundation for further development of regulations and assurance of autonomous passenger ferries. On the commercial side, the project analyzed and verified the global market potential, developed branding and partner strategies as well as a business plan for the newly created NTNU spin-off company Zeabuz. Zeabuz licenses the project results and has attracted a senior founding team and Norway's largest transportation company Torghatten ASA as investor. This is a solid starting point for commercialization of environmentally friendly autonomous passenger transportation services with potential global impact.