Signing of a grant agreement with the Nippon Foundation for a Joint Technological Development Programme
FURUNO ELECTRIC CO., LTD. (headquartered in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture; Yukio Furuno, President) is proud to announce the signing of a contract with the Nippon Foundation, formalizing Furuno's participation in a Joint Technological Development Programme for the Demonstration of Unmanned Ships (hereinafter referred to as "the programme").
The Programme, supported and funded by the Nippon Foundation, aims to develop the world's first autonomous ship by 2025 through collaboration amongst Japanese companies from different fields. Furuno is pleased to participate in two of the consortia within this programme: 1/Creating the future of unmanned autonomous ships — a grand design to be devised by various experts and 2/Autonomous technology experiment on container ships and car ferries. As a member of these two consortia and as a world leader in the development of marine Radar and radio communication equipment, Furuno will work on the technological development in these two promising project fields, fully utilizing 70 years of know-how and expertise gained in the field.
Our approach to the practical application of autonomous ships
Furuno is working on the realization of autonomous navigation (unmanned ships), using our cutting-edge sensor technology. This is the enabler of enhanced situational awareness (object recognition), and this would lead to execution of critical maneuvers for collision/allision avoidance based upon recognized surrounding situation (judgment). All this is part of our overarching vision for the future navigation that is embodied in our R&D project: FURUNO ENVISION. As a member of this partnership, we will use all our knowledge and experience to carry out demonstration trials for the programme launched by the Nippon Foundation. We also aim to acquire all the necessary technology towards the next era of autonomous ships.
About FURUNO ENVISION
https://www.furuno.com/special/en/envision/
Related Links