Final Results and Exploitation of the Cooperative Autonomous Robotic Towing System for Emergency Ship Towing Operations Support

This paper focuses on the results of the final operational trials of the CART (Cooperative Autonomous Robotic Towing system) Project. The project proposes a new concept for salvage operations of distressed ships at sea based on the exploitation of robotic platforms able to autonomously execute the high risk operation of linking the emergency towing system of distressed ships to towing vessels. The paper reports a description of the vehicles' development and the results of the final testing and exploitation carried out in real case scenarios.