Autonomous shipping. The future of the maritime industry?

The main goal of the article is to present the problems of the development of autonomous ships and to characterize the most important challenges. The article provides a description of autonomous ships and studies the existing relevant projects. It presents a spectrum of applications and possibilities of unmanned ships in the field of security. Currently, high hopes are placed on the functioning of unmanned ships. They are not only to be more economical but also to contribute to environmental protection. Developing a technology that allows the construction of ships and their safe operation is not the only task faced by enthusiasts of unmanned vessels. It is also important to develop and implement proper regulatory framework that will allow the legal operation of such ships.