Following five years of research, testing and redesigns, a fully electric, autonomous water taxi is now ready to be deployed in the canals of Amsterdam. Roboat can carry up to five people or 1500 kg in cargo, and can go for 10 hours before needing to be charged, which it does wirelessly at a dock without human intervention.
Developed by MIT and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, Roboat evolved from a desire to find new uses for the city's canal infrastructure and to lighten the load on its historic streets and bridges. Its hull was designed to be multifunctional: the top deck can be swapped to change a Roboat's use from passenger transport to carrying cargo.
While human operators currently still monitor the boats, the end goal is to take people out of the loop and have Roboats function with full autonomy.
