World's largest self-driving warship completes first sea trials

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The at-sea tests took place off the coast of San Diego, California.

'The 132-foot trimaran, christened Sea Hunter at a ceremony in April, met or surpassed all performance objectives for speed, maneuverability, stability, seakeeping, acceleration/deceleration, and fuel consumption, as well as establishing confidence in mechanical systems reliability in an open-ocean environment,' said Leidos, who made the ship.

Sea Hunter is designed to operate for extended periods at sea with no person on board and only sparse supervisory control throughout deployment.

While initial vessel tests require a pilot on board the ship, later tests are planned to have no personnel on board.

The completion of Sea Hunter's performance trials is the first milestone in the two-year test program co-sponsored by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research.

Testing in upcoming months is scheduled to include testing of sensors, the vessel's autonomy suite, compliance with maritime collision regulations, and proof-of-concept demonstrations for a variety of U.S. Navy missions.

The prototype can travel at a speed of up to 27 knots per hour, and is equipped with a variety of sensors and an advanced optical system to detect other ships.

The program to develop the ship cost $120 million, though the vessels can now be produced for about $20 million.

During the collision tests, the ship will be programed to follow international traffic rules for boats of its size.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Hunter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACTUV

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

132-foot Sea Hunter trimaran, has taken to the seas off San Diego to begin at-sea testing of its sensors, and self driving software.

In initial testing of Sea Hunter's autonomy capability, the ship successfully executed a multi-waypoint mission with no person directing course or speed changes.

Leidos also completed a test of the Remote Supervisory Control Station (RSCS), which allows remote supervisory control of the vessel and enables new mission tasking from a remote location, either afloat or ashore.

The completion of the RSCS test was the final test before beginning more extensive autonomous operations.

Testing of the Sea Hunter autonomy system in a variety of mission scenarios is scheduled to continue through fall 2017 as part of a two-year test program jointly funded by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

Testing in upcoming months is scheduled to include testing of sensors, the vessel's autonomy suite, compliance with maritime collision regulations, and proof-of-concept demonstrations for a variety of U.S. Navy missions.

The Pentagon's budget over the next five years calls for investing in more high-end Naval ships, including $600 million to be invested in unmanned undersea vehicles.

 

[qubit]

It must be a lot easier to implement an autonomous vehicle out in the open sea where's there's not much to hit.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I dont think they will be testing it in the South China sea



A Chinese warship has captured an underwater US Navy drone right in front of the eyes of the crew of an American ship in the South China sea.

When the Bowditch stopped to collect the underwater equipment, a Chinese warship that had been following it dropped a boat into the water then pulled up alongside the US vessel and snatched the drone, according to CNN.

The US crew had hoped to start communications with the Chinese vessel to get the drone back, but the ship eventually responded to say it was returning to normal operations and left the area, according to NBC News.

 

[the54thvoid]

Imagine the uproar if a Chinese ship was doing the same in the Eastern Pacific, near US territorial water.

 

[Ungari]

I dont think they will be testing it in the South China sea



A Chinese warship has captured an underwater US Navy drone right in front of the eyes of the crew of an American ship in the South China sea.

When the Bowditch stopped to collect the underwater equipment, a Chinese warship that had been following it dropped a boat into the water then pulled up alongside the US vessel and snatched the drone, according to CNN.

The US crew had hoped to start communications with the Chinese vessel to get the drone back, but the ship eventually responded to say it was returning to normal operations and left the area, according to NBC News.

This wasn't an accident, the US has been transferring technology to the CHICOMs and Russia for years.

The Best Enemies Money Can Buy:

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Remember the story of Sidewinder?

when a Chinese MIG returned to base with a missile stuck in it.......


from Wilki

On 28 September 1958,[3] a similar engagement resulted in one of the missiles becoming lodged in a MiG-17 without exploding, allowing it to be removed after landing. The Soviets later became aware that the Chinese had at least one Sidewinder, and after some wrangling, were able to convince the Chinese to send them one of the captured missiles.[4]Gennadiy Sokolovskiy, later chief engineer at the Vympel team, said that "the Sidewinder missile was to us a university offering a course in missile construction technology which has upgraded our engineering education and updated our approach to production of future missiles."[5]

 

[dorsetknob]

When the Bowditch stopped to collect the underwater equipment, a Chinese warship that had been following it dropped a boat into the water then pulled up alongside the US vessel and snatched the drone

Next time ( and they should do this ) the chinese Steal a Drone they find it stuffed with Torpex/tnt/semtex/C4 plastic Explosives and a Remote Detonator

10 min later "KABOOM" Confucius says " Be Careful what you Steal"

 

[Ferrum Master]

The thing looks ugly... screwed German uboat design with slapped cockpit from a construction crane.

 

[AsRock]

Next time ( and they should do this ) the chinese Steal a Drone they find it stuffed with Torpex/tnt/semtex/C4 plastic Explosives and a Remote Detonator

10 min later "KABOOM" Confucius says " Be Careful what you Steal"

Should of been in place already,even i know better if your spying you gotta have a way \ ways to cover your ass. This just sloppy.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

i would love to have seen the look on their faces when the Chinese just motored in and took it..............

 

[Fourstaff]

The thing looks ugly... screwed German uboat design with slapped cockpit from a construction crane.

Don't worry, future versions will probably remove the cockpit and training floaters.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

i would love to have seen the look on their faces when the Chinese just motored in and took it..............

I imagine they were pissed off and were wishing they had a destroyer escort. Bowditch is a ocean surveyor ship: they are completely unarmed and usually have a civilian crew. I'm sure future operations in that area will have a surveyor ship and the Chinese will get shots across the bow if they try anything.


Back on topic, I'm still not entirely sure why DARPA/USN cares so much about autonomous ships. The servers/AI used to pilot these ships no doubt takes more space than a human. I'm not opposed to doing the research but I don't see how it is very practical.

 

[Fourstaff]

Back on topic, I'm still not entirely sure why DARPA/USN cares so much about autonomous ships. The servers/AI used to pilot these ships no doubt takes more space than a human. I'm not opposed to doing the research but I don't see how it is very practical.

Off the top of my head I can think of a few already: extended duration, reduce personnel exposure to dangerous missions, ability to mass produce and deploy a swarm without needing to train crew.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Swarming isn't really a naval tactic though (because easy to find and destroy). I think the most applicable use of these ships is Coast Guard. Even in that role, they're limited without people on board. We're already using drones for dangerous missions.

The ships with the longest missions are submarines and aircraft carriers and neither of those are being studied for autonomy. In fact, submarine is probably the best application of autonomy because, right now, their range is limited primarily by food supplies. Maybe that's actually the point: they're doing this now because if something goes wrong, it won't turn into an expensive recovery operation--just tow it to port.