Rolls-Royce Marine has taken the first in a four-step strategy to realising unmanned ships.

The Fjord1 ferry project to operate a battery-powered, double-ended ferry for the crossing between Norway’s Anda and Lote using an automatic system is ready to go into service next year.

The ship will be crewed, but only the final berthing operations will be handled by the ship’s master with all other operations being fully automatic.