Australian-made underwater glider drones equipped with artificial intelligence could soon bolster UK naval surveillance
A small underwater drone designed in Perth that harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) has been showcased in the United Kingdom where the Royal Navy is considering using the technology to enhance anti-submarine warfare.
The makers of the "SG-1 Fathom" autonomous glider, which has been fitted with European developed software and AI, claim it can analyse and classify acoustic data up to 40 times faster than human operators.
Capable of long endurance missions lasting up to three months, the uncrewed gliders are designed to be mass-produced and deployed in large swarms to provide wide-scale ocean surveillance through constellations of sensors beneath the surface.
Over the weekend, the system was demonstrated at HM Naval Base Portsmouth in front of the Royal Navy's fleet commander, Vice-Admiral Andrew Burns, alongside officials and industry representatives, but precise details of the event remain undisclosed.
Last year West Australian-based Blue Ocean Marine Tech Systems teamed up with European defence technology company Helsing to develop the its SG-1 Fathom glider with acoustic sensors and an advanced software platform and AI system known as Lura.
Blue Ocean Group managing director and former Royal Australian Navy officer Mike Deeks says one of the principal design factors for the new platform was to keep the unit price down so it could be mass produced and deployed quickly.
"We decided to develop this platform because we saw a future that required multiple vehicles at sea swarming, or in a fleet working together, and there wasn't anything on the market that could do that.
"Because they are propelled only by adjustments to their buoyancy, even when they're not sitting on the seabed, they have an endurance measured in months, not days or weeks," the former submariner tells the ABC.
Australian-based Helsing director Rob Wilson says the uncrewed technology can enhance the work of existing traditional naval platforms by providing scale and persistence at a fraction of the cost of traditional anti-submarine warfare.
"Is the SG-1 Fathom on its own the whole answer? Not yet — but it's certainly pointing at an autonomous future that allows us to affordably monitor, deter and protect across our vast maritime approaches," the former commander says.
"Small is sexy; AI is giving us the compute now to deliver incredible capability in tiny packages, and tiny packages are affordable at scale — they're quick to produce, so they not only give you extraordinary capability, but capability that is resilient in supply."
Representatives of the Royal Australian Navy have also recently received briefings on the full classified capabilities of the SG-1 Fathom and Lura system, which the ABC has been told could eventually carry out a wider set of undersea missions.
For several years the Australian Defence Force has trialled larger autonomous maritime platforms in exercises off the coast, but the makers of the SG-1 Fathom hope their technology could eventually be adopted by all three AUKUS partners.
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