The Navy’s Office of Naval Research has developed the capability of using small, unmanned autonomous boats working together to carry out an attack on a surface vessel.
The Office of Naval Research said it is the first time the technology has been developed to not only protect Navy ships, but to engage enemy threats offensively.
Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, the chief of ONR, told reporters in an embargoed conference call last week that the service in August performed an exercise with 13 autonomous swarm boats to successfully engage a target.
“It’s not the fact that we have developed this technology, but we now have exercised it,” he said.
Klunder said he believes the system is ready and can be deployed within a year if it can be transitioned to the fleet.
At the heart of the autonomous swarm boat system is a technology ONR refers to as Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing, or CARACaS. CARACaS can be carried as a transportable kit and installed on any small boat.
The exercise took place on James River in Virginia. The 13 boats escorted a “high value” Navy ship and later swarmed a simulated enemy threat. ONR believes that the capability could expand to greater numbers of small boats acting together, and could even include unmanned aerial vehicles.