The US Navy has been testing the harbour defence capabilities of a group of small, autonomous boats, known as “swarm-bots” since October, in Chesapeake Bay. The Office of Naval Research showed off the squad’s ability to patrol and investigate with four rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB). In an interview on Wednesday, Rear Admiral John Kirby, director of public affairs for the Navy, said that while the tests were successful, they had not yet demonstrated how effective the robots would be at defending against enemy The autonomous units can be sent on more dangerous missions than those manned by humans, like mine clearance.
The US Navy has been testing the harbour defence capabilities of a group of small, autonomous boats, known as “swarm-bots” since October, in Chesapeake Bay. The Office of Naval Research showed off the squad’s ability to patrol and investigate with four rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB). The navy has a number of these boats already in use, and they can be retrofitted with the ONR’s autonomous swarm-bot system, Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS) quickly and inexpensively. The autonomous units can be sent on more dangerous missions than those manned by humans, like mine clearance.