IBEX 365 News

THE FUTURE WITH AVIKUS

Heading into the heart of boat show season, Avikus, HD Hyundai’s autonomous navigation in-house startup, is on the brink of changing the recreational boating market forever. After making a huge splash demonstrating their technology at last year’s Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, Avikus has been busy securing their future – and the future of boating.

The Future is Now
After their demonstrations last year, Avikus has been working hand-in-hand with Raymarine to further develop their products, integrating them into Raymarine’s technology to speed and ease the process of implementation.

At the Cannes Yachting Festival this year, Avikus announced the official debut of its NeuBoat Dock, which was developed in partnership with Raymarine and takes the stress out of docking by offering increased situational awareness through distance guides. The system is incredibly easy for boatbuilders to incorporate with simple to install sensors and intuitive calibration that can be performed dockside by the OEM with the option of remote assistance. This is the first in a series of product rollouts as Avikus strives to launch all of their technology. Higher level versions of the product will be able to provide autonomous cruising, collision avoidance, and docking.

Avikus’ technology will be installed on a wide variety of boats, such as the Fabbrica Italiana Motoscafi 440 Regina, the Princess Y80 and Beneteau’s new Lagoon. In addition to these three boatbuilder partners that showcased the Avikus solution on their new models at Cannes, San Lorenzo also offered NeuBoat Dock to new customers at the Show. Avikus’ current roster of partners is steadily growing by the day, with more boatbuilders slated to announce the integration of NeuBoat Dock into their products in the coming months and model years.

Spreading the Message: Boatbuilder Partners
Avikus’ primary motivation for entering the recreational boating market is the belief that autonomy can and will enhance the boating experience by making it easier for everyone. The company firmly holds that this will encourage boaters new and experienced to get more involved in the industry, helping to grow and diversify the market.

Reshaping the Future
The development of Avikus has been nothing short of explosive. Having revolutionized the commercial shipping industry, recreational boating is the next sector to be changed irrevocably by their autonomous solution.

Looking forward, Avikus will continue to expand and place their technology onto more and more boats. Every day, more boatbuilders sign on with Avikus, and every day, Avikus’s team works to innovate even further, to improve their technology beyond its furthest capabilities. With every new leap, they continue to radically transform the entire marine industry.

See the Future on Display at IBEX
At IBEX 2023, Avikus will be conducting a live demo in Tampa Bay to showcase a selection of the exciting and ground-breaking technology it is developing. Using proprietary deep learning and sensor fusion technology, the demonstration will show how diverse objects such as other boats and watercraft, buoys and even people in the water can be identified and displayed on the multi-function display.

At the sudden appearance of an on-coming boat, the autonomous collision avoidance system springs into action. By considering its path as well as the location of nearby bridges and other obstacles, the system calculates the optimal and safest path and instructs the engine to adjust automatically. Throughout the 20-minute journey, the boat will automatically adjust its speed to maintain safe distance from surrounding traffic.

The most challenging and stressful part of boating is often the last phase of the journey – docking. Naturally, this constitutes a key element of the demo. As the boat nears the dock, it will automatically search for and locate available docking spaces that fit the boat’s specs (length and width). By applying vision-based distance estimation and robust control technology, the boat nestles itself into the dock, perhaps so smoothly that passengers might not realize it’s time to disembark.

Come see the future of autonomous boating at IBEX 2023!