MIT is collaborating with two Dutch universities to create a small fleet of self-driving boats that will first be tested in Amsterdam to ferry commuters and goods about the city. The $27 million, five-year project named Roboat is expected to launch its first watercraft in the canals of the Dutch capital next year.

MIT has signed an agreement to engage in research collaborations with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) in the Netherlands. The collaboration’s flagship project, led by researchers from multiple departments at MIT, will be to develop a fleet of autonomous boats for the city’s canals.

Self-driving boats have a future in city canals. A five-year program to test the functions these autonomous boats in Amsterdam’s canals kicked off with an announcement on Monday, according to The Verge. The Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) has partnered with MIT, Delft University of Technology, and Wageningen University and Research.

Afvalinzameling, bezorging van spullen en vervoer van mensen: Amsterdam gaat experimenteren met zelfsturende vaartuigen die onbemand hun weg kunnen vinden over het water.

When it comes to autonomous vehicles, why stop on land when you can expand to the sea? That's the thinking of MIT and Amsterdam's Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute). The two organizations announced on Monday they have joined forces to create the cleverly named Roboat to explore the possibilities of creating self-driving boats.

Ready to start your week with a fun new word? Here you go: Amsterdam is set to the launch the world’s first fleet of autonomous boats, or “roboats” if you will, through a five-year research project. To be fair, the term has been used before for an autonomous sailboat used in marine surveying. But Amsterdam’s new Roboat program is more equivalent to what Google (goog, +0.74%) and Uber are doing with cars on streets—and a whole lot more.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Self-driving boats and assemblies of robotic platforms will one day shuttle people and goods along Amsterdam’s centuries-old canals - if a project part-funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology bears fruit. Researchers said on Monday they hope to launch the first prototypes of craft they have christened “roboats” in the Dutch city in 2017.

When half the traffic that goes on in the city is done by water, and the other half on bicycles, you tend not to be too interested in all this talk of autonomous technology unless they can apply it to either bikes or boats. Wait a minute: self-driving boats? How come nobody thought about this sooner?

De technische universiteit van Massachusets (MIT) investeert 20 miljoen euro in het project, de overige 5 miljoen euro is afkomstig het Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS). Zij zijn de komende vijf jaar verantwoordelijk voor de ontwikkeling van de 'roboat'. Twee universiteiten - uit Delft en Wageningen - helpen mee aan het ontwikkelen van de robotboot.

Het Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) gaat verschillende aspecten van autonome vaartuigen onderzoeken. Het vijfjarige programma Roboat, met een budget van 25 miljoen euro, is een samenwerking met het Amerikaanse MIT, de TU Delft en de Wageningen Universiteit.

One of America’s leading universities is putting €20m into developing robot boats which will be able to navigate the Amsterdam canals without a captain. The project, which will start trials next year, is a joint research programme between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, together with teams from Delft and Wageningen universities.

Autonomous cars are barely even here, but in Amsterdam, they’re already moving on to something else: self-driving boats. As part of a new collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions announced Monday that it will host a major new trial of autonomous boats.

Het Amsterdamse instituut voor Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) krijgt 20 miljoen euro van zijn Amerikaanse partner MIT voor een onderzoeksprogramma naar het watersysteem van de stad. AMS Institute legt er nog 5 miljoen bij, waardoor het onderzoeksbudget van AMS in een klap is verdubbeld.

Amsterdam wordt een openluchtlaboratorium voor zelfsturende boten. De Amerikaanse topuniversiteit MIT steekt twintig miljoen euro in het onderzoek.

Ab dem kommenden Jahr werden in Amsterdam selbstfahrende Boote getestet. Die schwimmenden Drohnen sollen sowohl Menschen und Waren transportieren als auch vorübergehend zu Brücken werden. Während andere Städte und Regionen autonome Autos testen, schaut man in Amsterdam aufs Wasser. Knapp ein Viertel der niederländischen Metropole ist von Kanälen bedeckt und auf diesen sollen ab 2017 selbstfahrende Boote getestet werden.