Americas News
U.S. Navy: Unmanned Vessels by Next Year, but "People Questions" Remain
The industry has moved a step closer to unmanned vessels being a reality, leaving political and cultural issues as the main barriers to its adoption, rather than the technology itself, Stars and Stripes reports.
Last week the U.S. Navy at a Pentagon press conference said it had recently tested a fleet of "autonomous" boats able to sense their environment and set course without human input.
The newly developed technology known as CARACaS is relatively cheap, costing thousands rather than millions of dollars, and could be applied to control larger vessels, said Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, Chief of Naval Research.
In addition the vessels could be put to a number of military and civilian uses, said Robert Brizzolara, Program Manager at the Office of Naval Research.
"The important point is CARACaS is flexible enough that we can use it to accomplish a number of different behaviors," said Brizzolara.
The test of the technology was successful meaning it could be ready for fielding by next year, said Klunder.
"The train is moving really fast," he said.
But "essentially people questions" remain according to Peter Singer, Strategist and Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, and it is not clear the technology will get final sign off for operational use by Navy chiefs.
"The choppy waters ahead are more organizational, bureaucratic, cultural, essentially people questions than they are technologic questions," said Singer.
The "moral" question surrounding the use of such vessels, says the report, is crucial when deciding how much autonomy robotic craft are given, particularly with regards to their use of lethal force.
Scandinavian research group SINTEF said recently that unmanned LNG-powered cargo ships could be a reality in 10 to 20 years.
