Posted on 10/06/2014 3:29:49 AM PDT by markomalley
As a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, loaded with 60 aircraft and more than 6,000 sailors, heads toward port, it's protected by a group of 10 or more small boats.
The boats move around the ship, scanning for suspicious and potentially hostile vessels coming too close. If they spot a potential adversary, they race toward the intruder, working together to swarm around it and block it from getting any closer.
If necessary, they can destroy an attacking vessel.
What makes this scenario unique is that these small boats are unmanned. No one's driving them or on the look out. No one's manning the machine gun.
The Office of Naval Research has created an autonomous boat system and recently tested up to 13 unmanned boats working together, according to Rear Admiral Matthew L. Klunder, chief of naval research. "It's not just the fact that we've developed this technology, but we've exercised it," he said.
The Navy expects to officially deploy the autonomous system -- dubbed CARACaS or Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing -- in about a year.
"We all recognize we live in a pretty volatile world," said Klunder. "There are sailors in harm's way trying to avoid conflicts and stabilize a region. We want to make sure that those sailors, those soldiers, are never in a fair fight. We want them to have the most innovative technologies available."
The technology, which uses artificial intelligence, machine perception and distributed data fusion, was successfully demonstrated over two weeks in August on the James River in Virginia.
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
What about sharks with friggin laser beams?
Great. The Chinese and Russians have stolen my credit card number twice this year. What makes us think they can’t hack a seaborne drone?
Why is stabilizing a region the job of the United State's Navy?
Oddly I thought their job was protecting the U.S. from foreign invasions and attacks.
Since we are routinely invaded across all of our borders - land, sea and air - they don't seem to be able to focus on their primary job.
Perhaps the role of World Cop should be submitted to the taxpaying public for affirmation...or negation.
What makes us think they can’t hack a seaborne drone?
Aquatic drones, airborne drones. Why does this sound like a pre-preqel of a movie about Sarah Connor’s child.
Sky net. They will become self aware. And then we are screwed!
If the ROE was clear and unrestricted enough to make autonomous engagement possible, you wouldn’t need autonomous engagement.
Killer robotic koi that will nibble everyone to death.
Agreed, 50 bucks worth of small caliber rounds trump a billion dollar speed boat traffic jam for a “deterrent” against jihadis.
I suspect jihadi do not play such games against Russian warships.
M5.. meet Capt. Duncle
Just hope we don’t unleash an army of cookie robots.
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