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US Navy Develops Robot Boat Swarm To Overwhelm Enemies
HughPickens.com writes "Jeremy Hsu reports that the U.S. Navy has been testing a large-scale swarm of autonomous boats designed to overwhelm enemies. In the test, a large ship that the Navy sometimes calls a high-value unit, HVU, is making its way down the river's thalweg, escorted by 13 small guard boats. Between them, they carry a variety of payloads, loud speakers and flashing lights, a .50-caliber machine gun and a microwave direct energy weapon or heat ray. Detecting the enemy vessel with radar and infrared sensors, they perform a series of maneuvers to encircle the craft, coming close enough to the boat to engage it and near enough to one another to seal off any potential escape or access to the ship they are guarding. They blast warnings via loudspeaker and flash their lights. The HVU is now free to safely move away.
Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, chief of the Office of Naval Research, points out that a maneuver that required 40 people had just dropped down to just one. "Think about it as replicating the functions that a human boat pilot would do. We've taken that capability and extended it to multiple [unmanned surface vehicles] operating together within that, we've designed team behaviors," says Robert Brizzolara. The timing of the briefing happens to coincide with the 14-year anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 sailors. It's an anniversary that Klunder observes with a unique sense of responsibility. "If we had this capability there on that day. We could have saved that ship. I never want to see the USS Cole happen again."
Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, chief of the Office of Naval Research, points out that a maneuver that required 40 people had just dropped down to just one. "Think about it as replicating the functions that a human boat pilot would do. We've taken that capability and extended it to multiple [unmanned surface vehicles] operating together within that, we've designed team behaviors," says Robert Brizzolara. The timing of the briefing happens to coincide with the 14-year anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 sailors. It's an anniversary that Klunder observes with a unique sense of responsibility. "If we had this capability there on that day. We could have saved that ship. I never want to see the USS Cole happen again."
On a hot boat, with water restrictions, you can develop an odor to overwhelm the enemy.
... someone drops a nuke on your HVU from 1000 miles away.
Why would you bother defining an acronym for reuse if you never reuse it? Oh yeah, because the summary is shamelessly copy & pasted from a source with zero meaningful editorial input.
And then watch as all 13 guard boats go sailing off to Iran...
The USS Cole was in the middle of a harbor being refueled when it was attacked. Would putting the rest of the harbor at risk of autonomous craft justify a small bit of extra security? How many times have the US Ships put into port / refueled without getting hit? Just seems that it would be a way to spend a ton of money for something that overly complicates normal procedures, and only wards off that 1% of attacks. (Note, percentage pulled out of my rear)
Also.... any autonomous craft would surely need a remote control system. You can't stop the signal (Mal). It wouldn't be impossible for another country / faction to take control of said boats, and use them to accomplish their goal.
Basically, seems like a large amount of money for a system that would cause more problems than it would solve.
Is the Admiral suffering from dementia, or is he just a fucking idiot? The attack on the Cole was successful because the rules of engagement did not allow the Cole to fire upon the boat.
So robots are the solution to not having a pair and being able to fire upon any intrusion on a soft perimeter?
Just like a embassy, let the world know that we consider a 50 meter perimeter around ANY US vessel to be American soil and will act as needed (including weapons fire) to protect that perimeter.
There - problem solved. If the Cole (and it's Pentagon masters) would have had a pair back in the day, that cluster f**k wouldn't have happened. But hey, soon as a few more billions are spent, we'll have a fleet of rubber robot boats to yell mean things at people trying to damage our fleets.
...heat ray.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I love how they add the not so dangerous stuff like we'll miss it.
Toothpaste, Jelly Beans, Machine Gun, Plunger, Flyswatter, Pepsi, Anthrax, Paper Clips, Tic Tacs, Barbra Streisand
A fisherman and a terrorist arrived at the sorting station between the gates of Heaven and the Hell. They were interviewed as is customary and sent forward to the endless waiting queue. The case officer scratched its leathery-feathery wings and reported to its supervisor: "They told the exactly same story about their death. They were both annoyed the Hell out of them." Supervisor looked bored and said: "I can tell you are new here. Just send them all to Heaven. Make them the problem of the feathery-winged ones. After all, they were sent here by those who blindly trust in Bob without any idea how much bureaucratic bullshit we have to put with because of him."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... No, really, check it out. I still have a few for sale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
The Persian gulf. The issue there is that lots of tiny boats could swarm US ships and destroy them. This is an Iranian plan by the way. To use the proximity of the US to the shore and just hundreds of little boats. The drone swarm idea appears to be a counter strategy.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Anyone else notice today's stories all could come right out of Slashdot on April Fools day?
Robot swarms?
Key loggers delivered by Microsoft in Windows?
Smart Gun and Mouse Authentication?
Whats next?
"Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply."
Have gnu, will travel.
Sometimes, its own population is precisely against whom I fear these new technologies will be used.
A robot swarm to encircle and torment humans...
When robots are able to assassinate people, it will be harder to catch the perpetrators. Also with automated cars, you could easily load the car with explosives and have it drive somewhere and it could be difficult to catch perpetrator as well.
The Japanese already developed ship killing airplanes, making most large navy ships no better than targets. Unfortunately that won't change until you get the WW1-tactics trained admirals retired.
Ftfy to match what they said before WWII. Then some smart person put airplanes ON the ships. So it was mobile airfields off of Japan's coast vs fixed land-based airfields in Japan. No fighting in the U.S. once we went to war. If we could figure out a way to put missiles on ships, it could be our missiles on mobile platforms off their coast vs their missiles in their territory. Again keeping the fight several thousand miles away from the US.
Yes, because there's a long history of the US using US naval assets against its own population. I mean, the last time was like only last.... er.... never. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're out to get you.
If they dropped the 50 cal, made the microwave more traditional, and kept the flashing lights those would be AWESOME at a rave!
In the early 1980s Doug Lenat used an evolutionary AI system to win a sci fi naval battle contest. His system, Eurisko, designed unexpected large fleets of ships that defeated more conventional systems designed by other players, overwhelming them with numbers. http://aliciapatterson.org/sto... So when the Navy uses AI to run the ships, AND to design them, might have something.
Looks like Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper was finally proven correct.
Basically, seems like a large amount of money for a system...
...and, in the "defense" arena, that's what makes the world go around.
What enemies? Seriously? The Russian rust buckets? The Chinese Junks?
The US has been at war since 1940. Time to give it a chance and let Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Europe to pay their own defense bills.
You've got to give it to the defense industry. They are endlessly inventive when it comes to coming up with ways to spend our money. If it wasn't for the fact that it usually results in hundreds of thousands of innocents dead, it would be kind of cool.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They send out a decoy first.
And while all 13 boats are busy flashing lights and playing Metallica at the decoy boat, the other boat does whatever it was planning to do.
For the price of 13 robotic boats they've raised the cost of an attack to... stealing two boats instead of one?
And then the decoy rushes at the boats around it and explodes, taking out or damaging at least some of the robotic boats as well.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If we had this capability there on that day [14 years ago]. We could have saved that ship. I never want to see the USS Cole happen again.
Obviously if US navy managed to do without this solution for 14 years, that means it is not such a breakthrough
Is it just coincidence that the embedded YouTube video has a terminator style soundtrack?
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
So what is this seaboat AI called? Seanet? *insert Terminator theme*
Wouldn't torpedoes or mines blow these little robot boats to smithereens?
In real life, a universe that the good general does not exist in, the controlling programs of the boats will be hacked in less than 5 minutes thus turning each boat into a remote-controlled kamikaze.
This is just what Iran is waiting for.
And the good General just stuck his right boot into a punji hole.
Ouch!
peace time Navy, is about as useless as Homeland Security protecting against Ebola.
Maybe the US navy should keep its boats out of other peoples rivers
(I don't know which country the Thalweg river is in, but I am sure it isn't in the USA
Except this one time
This has been tried before. A single high power multi spectrum RF jammer can stop the command and control and inter-communication of the swarm... Hell you can buy one from Ebay!
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
.. that these will be mostly used to kill poor "terrorist" fishermen in 3rd world countries. Their small wooden boats are now completely chanceless to escape back home to the poor families they are trying to feed!
40 people will keep a better watch than one. Consider: 40 total with one asleep leaves 39 active lookouts. One person, asleep, leaves zero.
I'm still not convinced why you need a dozen computer-controlled boats with toys when you could just shot the presumed enemy vessel.
The first thing that my brain managed to come up was "US Navy Develops Robot Boat Swarm To Overwhelm Earth".
Needs a popcorn gun to fill ship with popcorn, then hit it with the microwave cannon! Imagine how much popcorn they could pop in just 30 seconds.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
What could possibly go wrong?
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
ZERG RUSH!!!