.jpg/r%5Bwidth%5D=1280/b7940110-dafb-11ed-817a-85ff72e04acb-Avikus-NeuBoat_Navigation(Collision-Avoidance).webp)
Lauren Beck is the former editor of Dockwalk and was with the publication from 2006 to 2023. At 13, she left South Africa aboard a 34-foot sailing boat with her family and ended up in St. Maarten for six years. Before college, she worked as crew for a year, and then cut her journalistic teeth at Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal online. She loves traveling, reading, tennis, and rooting for the Boston Red Sox.
Autonomous is the name of the game these days. Avikus, Hyundai’s in-house autonomous arm, is making inroads into the yachting industry with its new autonomous navigation system. Avikus offers options for both the leisure and the merchant shipping markets: the Hyundai intelligent Navigation Assistant System (HiNAS) for merchant ships and NeuBoat, the Avikus autonomous boat solution for the leisure boat market.
HiNAS has two options — the Navigation Assistant System (NAS) and Berthing Assistant System (BAS), while NeuBoat has four: NAS, the Docking Assistant System (DAS), NAS 2.0, and DAS 2.0. According to Avikus, level one automation provides assistance for the operator, while level two runs the vessel fully autonomously.
NeuBoat — a combination of “neuron” and “boat” — offers route planning and autonomous nav, AI-based obstacle detection and collision avoidance, plus automated docking and undocking. Operators can select how best they’d like the boat to handle itself with the three levels of automation possible: NeuBoat navigation, NeuBoat navigation and docking, or NeoBoat control, which takes over the vessel entirely.
NeuBoat navigation learns and recognizes on-water activity in real time with its Smart Object Detection and Classification, which is based on “Sensor Fusion” from the vessel’s cameras, LiDAR, and radar. This allows the system to process the data for NAS to maintain an optimal, safe route as the vessel navigates. Navigation can also be controlled via mobile device from anywhere aboard.
DAS technology can assist with docking or take over completely. The system uses 3D surround view system and collision warning to navigate into a berth.
The NeuBoat won a 2023 CES Innovation Award and Avikus recently signed a multi-year exclusivity deal with Raymarine at the 2023 Miami boat show for an exclusive cooperation to develop and launch “the world’s first autonomous leisure boat solution, the Raymarine x Avikus NeuBoat,” a recent press release announced. Going forward, they plan to launch a full product line of autonomous leisure boat systems for different boat types and sizes.