Rolls-Royce and ferry operator Finferries have announced that they have successfully demonstrated the world’s first fully autonomous ferry in the archipelago south of the city of Turku, Finland.

Known as Falco, the 53.8-meter double-ended car ferry, which had 80 invited VIP guests aboard during the demonstration, navigated autonomously during its voyage between Parainen and Nauvo using a combination of Rolls-Royce Ship Intelligence technologies.

The companies note that the ferry’s return journey was conducted under remote control.

“Today marks a huge step forward in the journey towards autonomous shipping and reaffirms exactly what we have been saying for several years, that autonomous shipping will happen,” says Mikael Makinen, Rolls-Royce, President – Commercial Marine.

Mats Rosin, Finferries’ CEO, adds, “as a modern ship-owner our main goal in this cooperation has been on increasing safety in marine traffic as this is beneficial for both the environment and our passengers. But we are also equally excited about how this demonstration opens the door to the new possibilities of autonomous shipping and safety.”

Using sensor fusion and artificial intelligence, Falco detected objects and conducted collision avoidance. Using a recently developed autonomous navigation system, the ferry also demonstrated automatic berthing.

All of these operations were conducted without any human intervention from the crew.

The Falco is equipped with a variety of advanced sensors that allow it to build a detailed picture of its surroundings, in real time and with a level of accuracy beyond that of the human eye, according to the companies.

The situational awareness picture is created by fusing sensor data. This picture is relayed to Finferries’ remote operating center on land—approximately 50 kilometers away in Turku city center—where a captain monitors the autonomous operations, and can take control of the vessel if necessary.

During the tests in Turku archipelago, Rolls-Royce says that it has clocked close to 400 hours of sea trials so far. Among the technologies that have been successfully tested thus far are the Rolls-Royce Autodocking system, which enables the vessel to automatically change course and speed when approaching the quay and carry out automatic docking without human intervention.

The collision avoidance technology has also been tested during the sea trials, in various conditions for several hours of operation.