
U.S. Navy Tests Robot Boat Swarm to Overwhelm Enemies - srikar
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/us-navy-robot-boat-swarm
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JoeAltmaier
Cool in principle. But in another more-informative article (posted on HN) they
mention each boat has sailors monitoring their activity 1-on-1 to prevent
tragedies (firing on civilians with the on-board 50-cal gun). So its no
savings in manpower to use so-called autonomous boats.

And then what about mission capabilities? How can a robot boat board another
vessel? What CAN it do? The ariticle says: form a 'line' between that boat and
your high-value ship. For what purpose?

Compare another approach: smaller high-speed 1-2 meter robot torpedo boats.
They can approach stealthier, perhaps go faster (hydrofoil?) and disable a
combatant by exploding, ramming or shooting. They'd be far, far cheaper than a
standard patrol boat converted to automatic control. And instantly deployable
by launching over the side.

