The UK Defence Secretary has announced a £75million ($98 million) funds injection for robots and autonomous mine-hunter vessels for the Royal Navy. The fund is planned to be spent on two new autonomous mine-hunter vessels with sonars, to enable remote mine-hunting at higher range, speed and accuracy as well as NavyX, a new joint military and industry hi-tech accelerator.
Specifically, NavyX aspires to change the way the Royal Navy purchases technology, streamlining the process and creating a new facility where industry, military and academia can test and purchase new equipment.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson stated
Today’s announcement will not only allow the Royal Navy to rapidly harness dynamic, cutting-edge equipment at speed, but also ensure they can outpace adversaries both on the water and the sea floor.
Also, the previous month, the UK Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) awarded £2.5 million ($3 million) to a union by Blue Bear Systems Research to develop drone swarm technology.
The project ‘Many Drones Make Light Work’ is the largest single contract that is awarded by DASA, until now.
Numerous drones could set high the situational awareness, medical assistance operations, logistics resupply, explosive ordnance detection and disposal and aid in confusion and deception.
Yet, for the time being, operational systems require one or more operators to manage and pilot the drone. As this is remotely done, it consumes time and resources to train operators.
To mitigate this time-consuming method, the UK Armed Forces are looking for robot solutions that will provides a ‘Force-Multiplier’ effect where greater military capability is delivered by fewer people and equipment.
The swarm system is one possible solution to this as it will cover larger areas of battlespace more quickly at lower cost and reduced man hours. It also removes the operator from potentially harmful situations.
The announcement of the funding, follows the allocation of £31 million ($41 million) by Williamson into new mini-drones.