The Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS), one of the world’s full autonomous ships, will be officially launched on September 16th in Plymouth, UK.

The trimaran vessel will then spend the next 6 months in sea trials and will undertake various research missions and voyages before attempting to cross the Atlantic in Spring 2021.

MAS’s transatlantic voyage will be based on a similar route and pioneering spirit to the 1620 Mayflower which made the same crossing 400 years ago. The passengers onboard, mainly Christian Puritans, became known as pilgrims.

However, this time around the vessel will be using IBM’s AI, advanced servers, cloud and edge computing technologies to navigate autonomously and avoid ocean hazards as it makes its way from Plymouth, England to Plymouth, Massachusetts.

During the 12-day voyage, the trimaran ship will be powered mainly by wind and solar energy.