As technology continually progresses, more and more sophisticated products are introduced to traditional industries in order to save human labor costs and increase safety. However, during these transitions towards new technologies, the disruptive products must be able to demonstrate their functionality on existing infrastructure. One industry that is entering such a transition is ship operation. However, retrofitting existing ships with fully automated electro-mechanical devices would be an incredibly invasive and costly procedure. Thus, an economical solution to demonstrate the benefits of fully automating ship operation is to develop a “ShipBot” capable of autonomously manipulating various existing manual electro-mechanical devices present on current ships.

This ShipBot must be able to operate within confined spaces on ships while still being able to manipulate various devices placed in locations intended for human operators. In addition, it must be able to quickly sense its environment, create a map for it, and complete its assigned tasks within a short period of time to prove its worth.