AVATAR meets ZAWAS

04 January 2022 - Published by Tom Pauwels

During an online workshop on autonomous sailing (7/12/2021), the projects ZAWAS and AVATAR aligned and shared experiences. Despite the difference in focus of both projects (passenger transport in ZAWAS, freight transport in AVATAR), several common challenges were identified.

Common challenges of AVATAR and ZAWAS are:

=> How to deal with the current regulation?
=> How to create public acceptance that autonomous vessels will be sailing without a skipper?
=> How to make the concepts economically viable?
=> How to integrate the concepts in an urban environment?

ZAWAS aims to transform the waterways into rapid, zero-emission, autonomous public transportation transits in urban areas. AVATAR aims to test innovative and sustainable urban freight transport concepts with highly autonomous, zero-emission vessels in order to achieve a modal shift from road to water in an urban context on the last mile.

It has been agreed that ZAWAS and AVATAR will keep on informing each other and share in between results.

Many thanks to SAMS Norway, NCE Maritime CleanTech and Nordic Edge for this interesting workshop and the opportunity for AVATAR project partners Tom Pauwels and Thomas Brauner to present AVATAR.