Onboard AI Reshaping Marine Electronics

Third-party AI and sensor integrations are currently reshaping the technical landscape of marine-electronics systems.

As a kid growing up in a sailing-obsessed house, I learned to read radar imagery at a young age. In a rudimentary way, at least. But this didn’t make the tool user-friendly. Mid-1980s radar returns were blob-like affairs displayed on black-and-white screens. Art often needed to supplement science to decipher complex scenes.

I rediscovered this frustration when, decades later, I started covering sonar for Yachting. I remember attending sea trials with sonar experts who could infer massive amounts of information from what—to me—were blob-like affairs, this time on color screens.

Flash forward to the age of AI and increasing third-party integrations, and the days of needing art to supplement science could be… Read More