An Independent Test for a Robot Navigator, and Nobody Shows the Scores

Robosys Automation has had its VOYAGER AI navigation software tested by MARIN, the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands. MARIN is one of the world's best-known ship testing institutes, and it is not the seller. That alone puts this ahead of most autonomy announcements.

What was tested. The software was run through 55 traffic scenarios written by DNV: ships meeting head-on, crossing, overtaking, with one, two or many other vessels. MARIN checked whether it made safe, predictable decisions that follow the collision rules, and whether it went back to its planned route afterwards. MARIN then added harder cases: dense traffic rebuilt from real ship tracking data, fishing boats, navigation close to shore, random encounters and cases written by experienced navigators. Robosys and MARIN have worked together since 2018, including North Sea trials on a 26-metre crew boat.

What we are not told. The scores are not published. There is no pass rate, no list of failures and no result for any single scenario. We do not know whether it was all simulation or partly at sea, how many runs were made, or when. DNV wrote the scenarios, but there is nothing to say it watched or approved the tests. No customer is named. We covered the VOYAGER simulator when it launched in March, and the gap is the same: a lot of testing, very little you can see.

Why this still matters. Shared test scenarios are how a market grows up. If every supplier runs the same 55 DNV situations through an outside lab, buyers can finally compare. But a test result nobody can read is a press release with a better address. Last month Europe's Galileo team published the details of its spoofing test, results included. That is the standard to ask for.

Put it next to story 2. One system is not trained on the collision rules and is honest about it. The other is tested against them and keeps the results private. If you are evaluating any collision avoidance or autonomy system, ask for the result of every scenario, including the ones it failed, and whether the test was in a simulator or on the water. A supplier that tells you where it failed is a supplier you can work with. [Digital Ship · AiatSea, 20 September]

This story is part of the Maritime AI Digest of 18 October 2026.