The world's first fully autonomous warship aces sea trials

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By Matthew Griffin Security and Privacy 9th August 2016

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

The US Navy’s trials of their first autonomous warship platform have been wildly successful.

The US Navy’s new unarmed Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) Sea Hunter has completed its first round of sea trials and it aced all of its tests for speed, manoeuvrability, stability, seakeeping, acceleration, deceleration, and fuel consumption, as well as mechanical systems reliability on the open sea.

Video 1: ACTUV speed and manoeuvrability tests, Apr 2016

Built by defence firm Leidos for a mere $20ml and co-sponsored by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the autonomous 132ft trimaran, which is designed to track potentially hostile submarines for months at a time without a crew, was launched earlier this year on April 9 at the Swan Island shipyard in Portland, Oregon.

While Sea Hunter had a pilot on board for the initial trials, and is currently equipped with a temporary pilot house the next trials, set to start next month will have no personnel on board letting Leidos and DARPA test the ships autonomous capabilities. When it’s in service Sea Hunter will operate for around 70 days at sea without a crew and will leave and return to port on its own.

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These first round of trials are the beginning of a two year long test program and the next phase of testing will concentrate more on the vessel’s autonomous capabilities with a focus on sensors, the autonomy suite, the ability of the vessel to comply with maritime collision regulations, and what Leidos calls “proof of concept” demonstrations for a variety US Navy missions and from the results we’re seeing so far it isn’t too hard to see the Sea Hunter being just the first in a long line of autonomous warships. The only question we, and many others have, is when will they be armed and then, eventually, who will have control of those new weapons systems in the long run.

The world of warfare is changing and it’s changing fast.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.