

Navy: Self-guided unmanned patrol boats make debut - anigbrowl
http://www.myfoxal.com/story/26706962/navy-self-guided-unmanned-patrol-boats-make-debut

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gokhan
Photo here:

[http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/navy-guided-unmanned-
patr...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/navy-guided-unmanned-patrol-boats-
make-debut-25972159)

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JoeAltmaier
I'm unconvinced. More patrol boats are clearly a good thing for protecting a
high-value ship. But not having a sailor on board seems pointless. It makes
the patrol boat More unreliable (if communications are lost the boat shuts
down). It doesn't save manpower because sailors monitor the boat 1-on-1 to
prevent tragedies. Why not just have that sailor on the boat? And the boat
shown doesn't seem any cheaper - its a regular patrol boat with robotic
systems installed - still has manual controls, seats, cargo space as if it
were to be manned. And what can a patrol boat do? It can't board another boat,
take over its controls and redirect it. It can only choose to shoot it (with
onboard remote-control gun) or not. Very much limited in mission capability.

Whereas a very-much-cheaper drone boat of 1-2 meters in size would be harder
for other combatants to detect, could travel in novel ways (submersible? High-
speed hydrofoil?), and could act as a torpedo if needed to disable another
combatant. Kind of like quad-coptors vs full-sized helicopters.

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tonyarkles
I don't disagree with you that looking into alternative form factors would be
a good idea. A great one in fact!

What's the #1 reason to not just put a sailor on the patrol boat? Loss of
life.

While this is not the ideal solution to the problem, it's cheap ($2000 to
retrofit existing boats? That's cheap!) It's similar enough to the existing
technology that it's not going to be looked at as some new untested
revolutionary thing, it's going to be looked at as an incremental upgrade to
the patrol boat. It saves lives and it opens up the gates for more
revolutionary designs in the future, as people get more comfortable with the
idea.

Seems like wins all over to me.

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gulfie
The arc of development is clear. This is only a small beginning step.

Existing boats are an easy low risk low cost platform to develop on. Expect
air, submersible, and larger surface units with the same capabilities within
time.

Thought no sexy, the same sort of technology will be used in logistics. Some
argue the truck and the liberty ship won world war II. Automated over the
beach resupply without paying for air assets would be a large cost savings and
allow resupply of larger and heavier inventory items like bulk fuel, food,
aircraft parts and tanks.

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samstave
> __ _Automated over the beach resupply without paying for air assets would be
> a large cost savings and allow resupply of larger and heavier inventory
> items like bulk fuel, food, aircraft parts and tanks._ __

Awesome, now al we need is a world war and we can try out our new, efficient,
automated toys!!

Its a great time to be alive.

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leaveyou
"And if communication between the unmanned boats and the sailor overseeing
them were ever broken, the boat would automatically shut down." Isn't this a
major vulnerability ?

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JoeAltmaier
Agreed. These boats are a demo of a capability; maybe not useful for much but
civilian patrol.

Consider: I could put a jammer on my boat, and go out shutting down,
harvesting Navy robot boats and selling them for scrap!

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TeMPOraL
Yeah, that would go fine with first two boats, and then you'd have to explain
yourself to a SEAL team that would come on the third one. Or, if they were
especially lazy, you'd quickly learn about Anti-Radiation Missiles.

