The docking mechanism itself is a ball-and-socket system that uses a laser to tell when the ball is inside, locking the arriving robot into place. The socket, meanwhile, is a funnel that gives the boats leeway to bounce around in the water.

There’s no guarantee you’ll see production versions of this tech. Roboat has been in development for several years. However, there’s a clear roadmap for the future. A new funnel could give the bots more control for towing other objects through canals, while the tags themselves could be displayed on an LCD to issue instructions to multiple boats from one lead automaton. And like you’d guess, the basic principles involved aren’t limited to the water — this could help with everything from docking spacecraft to recharging your robot vacuum.