The Mayflower Autonomous Ship. Source: ProMareTo mark the 400^th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage, a U.K.-based marine research organization is teaming with IBM to build a fully autonomous ship to re-enact the Mayflower’s original journey from the U.K. to America.

The unmanned ship, currently being constructed by ProMare and with artificial intelligence (AI) supplied by IBM, has been dubbed the Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) in a nod to the Pilgrim ship that set sail from Plymouth in the U.K. on September 6, 1620, and that arrived in Massachusetts in December of that same year.

Once completed, the ship, which is a catamaran-style design, will depart Plymouth, U.K., in September 2020. Eventually, the ship will be outfitted with AI, which will enable it to avoid collisions with other ships and determine its course, light detecting and ranging (lidar) technology, radar, a global positioning system (GPS), and satellites and cameras along with other technology. The boat will operate using both wind and solar power and will be equipped with a diesel generator for emergencies.

To create the machine learning algorithms enabling the ship’s autonomy, researchers gathered data from hundreds of ships passing through Plymouth Sound. Similarly, the ship will rely on IBM’s operation decision manager (ODM) tool to automate the ship’s real-time decision-making.

As the unmanned ship makes the 3,220 mile trek across the Atlantic Ocean, research pods attached to the vessel, courtesy of the University of Plymouth, carrying sensors and other assorted instruments, will be used to conduct research, mapping sea levels, monitoring marine life, measuring ocean microplastic levels and conducting maritime cybersecurity.

While the original voyage took roughly two months to complete with 132 passengers and crew onboard for the journey that brought settlers from Europe to America, the modern-day voyage should not take as long with an expected arrival date of two weeks after departure — this time without Pilgrims or any humans at all.