The UK Royal Navy conducted a four-day exercise as they put a full range of remotely-operated devices under autonomous control for a trial off the coast of Norway.
Specifically, the exercise placed the unmanned boat Mast 13, a heavy lift drone from Malloy, the remotely-piloted air system Puma and the Remus unmanned sub-surface drone through their paces in rough Arctic conditions.
The Royal Navy installed an artificial intelligence system, to control the technologies, in amphibious ship Albion, while industry partners joined onboard to implement and oversee the system trials.
It is stated that it was the first time an unmanned surface vessel was operated from the dock in HMS Albion and the first time 700X Naval Air Squadron have flown Puma from a Royal Marines landing craft.
Colonel Chris Haw, commanding officer of Plymouth-based 47 Commando, commented that
We wanted to operationalise the technology, both in an operational environment and as part of a NATO deployment. This exercise also enabled us to also integrate technology as far as possible into a Royal Navy warship.
