A big driver for updating the world’s ships is the war on pollution. In fact, just 15 of the largest vessels produce the same amount of sulphur emissions as all the planet’s cars put together. But large companies are also, of course, looking for ways of maximising their profits.

Wärtsilä’s experiment is still some way from becoming an everyday reality in shipping, admits head of digital Andrea Morgante. But because ship owners could cut significant costs by removing human crews from their vessels, he’s convinced it has potential.

“You could imagine new forms of tugs that are remote-controlled, to support vessels in the harbour,” he says. Another option would be ships that transport cargo around ports or along coastlines.

In fact, one firm already working with others to test and deploy fully autonomous vessels that do this sort of thing without human pilots is Kongsberg, of Norway.

It has two ships in development, the Hrönn and the YARA Birkeland. The Birkeland, an 80-metre long (264ft) container transporter will also be fully electric and is planned to enter service in the second half of 2018.

Peter Due, director of autonomy at Kongsberg, extols the accuracy of the sensors on board its test vehicles.

“One system can see a beer can – you can’t tell if it’s Heineken or Carlsberg but you can see a beer can coming up close [on the water],” he explains. Machine learning trains the system to know what sort of objects are important to avoid, he adds.

“A seagull is not something to be [wary] of but if you have a swimmer it will recognise that and act accordingly.”

A recent report by the University of Southampton suggested autonomous ships will arrive faster than expected, because of falling technological costs and a demand to solve a labour shortage in some areas of shipping.

But as Due points out, bodies like the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) will probably take several years to design regulations that allow autonomous vessels to operate in international waters. Within a country’s national waters, however, local laws may allow for quicker adoption of such systems, he adds.

Regardless of who or what is piloting future ships – might it be human or robot? - the design of massive, emission-spewing commercial vessels is set to change. And that’s another way that these vital modes of transport could lessen their impact on our planet.