ROBOTIC SAILING 2014 — PROCEEDINGS OF THE 7TH INTERNATIONAL ROBOTIC SAILING CONFERENCE

The publication contains the proceedings of the Seventh Conference on Robotic Sailing which was held in 2014; the volume includes numerous interesting works presented by the researchers from all around the world relating to both future and current challenges in the development of the various autonomous sailboats.

The autonomous sailing robots are the boats that only use the wind force for propelling with neither any actual human assistance nor any sort of remote control. The type of sailing in question offers the great potential of long-term and range autonomous solar, wind- and wave-propelled devices that are also carbon neutral. Such devices would greatly contribute to the monitoring of various important data, for example ecological, hydrographic, environmental conditions and other. Moreover, such robots could also be utilized for monitoring the traffic, assistance, surveillance, security plus rescue purposes.

However, they are still very dependent on the wind and sea conditions that are subject to the rapid change, and this is what in fact presents a serious challenge for the route planning, control of stability and avoidance of possible collisions. We recommend to treat the book as a definitely interesting and also quite informative publication for every robotic sailing enthusiast willing to be kept updated with the very latest technological developments and advances in the subject field.