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Monday, October 6, 2014
U.S. Navy Tests Robot Boat Swarm to Overwhelm Enemies
As reported by IEEE Spectrum: A fleet of U.S. Navy boats approached an enemy vessel like sharks
circling their prey. The scene might not seem so remarkable compared to
any of the Navy's usual patrol activities, but in this case, part of an
exercise conducted by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR), the boats
operated without any direct human control: they acted as a robot boat
swarm.
The tests on Virginia's James River this past summer represented the
first large-scale military demonstration of a swarm of autonomous boats
designed to overwhelm enemies. This capability points to a future where
the U.S. Navy and other militaries may deploy underwater, surface, and flying robotic vehicles to defend themselves or attack a hostile force.
"What's new about the James River test was having five USVs [unmanned
surface vessels] operating together with no humans on board,"
said Robert Brizzolara, an ONR program manager.
In the test, five robot boats practiced an escort mission that involved
protecting a main ship against possible attackers. To command the
boats, the Navy use a system called the Control Architecture for Robotic
Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS). The system not only steered the
autonomous boats but also coordinated its actions with other vehicles—a
larger group of manned and remotely-controlled vessels.
Brizzolara said the CARACaS system evolved from hardware and software
originally used in NASA's Mars rover program starting 11 years ago. Each
robot boat transmits its radar views to the others so the group shares
the same situational awareness. They're also continually computing their
own paths to navigate around obstacles and act in a cooperatively
manner.
Navy researchers installed the system on regular 7-foot and 11-foot
boats and put them through a series of exercises designed to test
behaviors such as escort and swarming attack.
The boats escorted a manned Navy ship before breaking off to encircle a
vessel acting as a possible intruder. The five autonomous boats then
formed a protective line between the intruder and the ship they were
protecting. Photo: John F. Williams/U.S. NavyAn
unmanned boat operates autonomously during an Office of Naval Research
demonstration of swarm boat technology on the James River in Newport
News, Va.
Such robotic swarm technology could transform modern warfare for the U.S. Navy and the rest of the U.S. military by reducing the risk to human personnel.
Smart robots and drones that don't require close supervision could also
act as a "force multiplier" consisting of relatively cheap and
disposable forces—engaging more enemy targets and presenting more
targets for enemies to worry about.
"Numbers may once again matter in warfare in a way they have not since
World War II, when the U.S. and its allies overwhelmed the Axis powers
through greater mass," wrote Paul Scharre,
a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a military research
institution in Washington, D.C., in an upcoming report titled "Robotics
on the Battlefield Part II: The Coming Swarm."
"Qualitative superiority will still be important, but may not be
sufficient alone to guarantee victory," Scharre wrote. "Uninhabited
systems in particular have the potential to bring mass back to the fight
in a significant way by enabling the development of swarms of low-cost
platforms." The Navy does not have a firm timeline for when such robot swarms could
become operational. For now, ONR researchers hope to improve the autonomous system
in terms of its ability to "see" its surroundings using different
sensing technologies. They also want to improve how the boats navigate
autonomously around obstacles, even in the most unexpected situations
that human programmers haven't envisioned. But the decision to have such
robot boats open fire upon enemy targets will still rest with human
sailors.
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