back to article US plans crewless automated ghost-frigates

Those splendid brainboxes at DARPA - the Pentagon's in-house bazaar of the bizarre - have outdone themselves this time. They now plan an entirely uncrewed, automated ghost frigate able to cruise the oceans of the world for months or years on end without human input. The new project is called Anti-submarine warfare Continuous …

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  1. Andy Livingstone

    Steal one?

    How protected from Somali pirates?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Black Helicopters

      Pirates

      One would assume that the pirates could not override the controls of the ship - or for that matter easily board. If one allowed that, then the ship is basically useless.

      Oh - I gave away too much information! Gotta run!

  2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Two things puzzle me

    For long endurance, a ship must be big, does this not make the ACTUV rather expensive? Even if it is cheaper than a frigate, but it is still a big target, more-or-less a sitting duck. Refueling at sea does not seem an option.

    I am surprised they went for Unmanned, not Intelligent: ACTIV sounds better

    1. Trygve

      Ah, but...

      Replace the galley, bunk rooms, food storage, water processing, etc. etc. with diesel tanks and you get a heck of a lot more range out of a fairly small hull, plus you could probably bin a lot of the the more bulky surface/air systems too.

      Not entirely sure how plausible it is to have something chugging round the oceans for months on end without someone giving it a regular once-over, though, the marine environment is notoriously harsh on machinery. I can imagine it needing a lot of bath sealant applied before setting off.

      Thinking about it, you might be better of with something rather like a surfaced sub than a conventional hull. And a bloody good insurance policy for when it inevitably causes havoc somewhere - even human captains are forever ramming their warships into islands, continents, boatloads of japanese schoolkids, etc. etc. etc.

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

        Ha, but...

        Make it nucular!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          Bad idea!

          Now you have enriched U floating around on the sea with no one guarding it

        2. Disco-Legend-Zeke

          No Worries...

          ..about all those pesky neutrons and stuff since there is no crew.

          Or it could harvest whales, and run on whale oil.

  3. Andy 17
    Pirate

    How long before..

    I await the news of the first deployed unmanned vessel being stolen at sea.

  4. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Alternatively

    You could stop selling silent diesel electric boats to dodgy 3rd world dictatorships?

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Pirate

      and

      start selling second-hand ghost ships...

  5. Lewis Page.
    FAIL

    Ridiculous Idea

    What a totally garbage idea? Speaking from experience (ex submariner / ex skimmer) if I was being tracked by a robotoy ship as soon as I left port with constant active sonar pinging on my hull - sorry, but that is neer on an act of war - you are mr. Palitoy ship dude - putting the safety of me and my crew at risk by broadvasting to the planey where my submarine is!

    First thing I'd do is take it out - which I suspect every boat Captain would - and what then? An excuse to invade that minor country? Oh wait........

    1. Trygve

      You are having a laugh, right?

      Exactly how many countries are going to hand over a submarine to someone stupid enough to think that torpedoing a US Navy warship is a good way of passing a dull afternoon? Particularly one that that is sending a minute-by-minute update on his position back to Norfolk, Virginia?

      I think "Are you an utter moron?" and "will you get us involved in a major war without asking us for permission first?" probably feature highly on most national sub-skipper selection tests.

      1. Cameron Colley

        @Trygve

        But, is blowing up an unmanned vessel sufficient to allow the US to legally kill? Even though I suspect that the international-law-ignoring US may not like the bad publicity that could follow "Pakistani Submarine Crew killed for blowing up remote control boat" or "Somali fishermen gunned down by US for shooting unmanned boat".

        1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

          You are not Lewis Page

          You have a full stop on your name. No Vulture icon either. Go away.

      2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        @You are having a laugh, right?

        But you aren't sinking a warship and killing US sailors you are just removing an unmanned hazard to navigation. Sinking one of these would be no different from removing a minefield.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        But...

        You don't have to take it out by torpedoing it. Just have a handy minefield - well marked for the benefit of civilian ships and navies alike - near your submarine base. Head out under said minefield and the unmanned thing has to either lose you or go through the minefield.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Easy-peasy

        Exit harbor, pick up tail, surface, yell through a bullhorn "Get out of our waters!", wait 2 minutes, blow up. Anything violating the borders of a sovereign nation without the permission of said nation is fair game, especially if it's unmanned.

        Besides it would be a great propaganda coup. Any nation likely to attract the attention of such a vessel is not going to be overwhelmingly friendly in the first place. Offing a robot from The Great Satan is probably not going to earn the captain any demerits.

        As for picking up the sub outside national waters - forget it. *That* takes a manned vessel unless the way there is extremely restricted. I can't think of any nations likely to be targets of Mary Celeste to have such restricted access to the high seas. Even Iran has a nice long coastline to the Indian Ocean, making any automated shadowing a losing proposition.

        1. seven of five Silver badge

          Re: Easy-peasy

          My thoughts exactly:

          To get rid of one of those buggers, the sub has to go where the X-ship can´t.

          Chinese teritorial water came to my mind. Or an ice shelf.

          Though both are not natural habitats for foreign diesel subs.

          Maybe they should just tell greenpeace about all the whale-killing active sonar.

  6. S Larti
    Welcome

    I for one...

    welcome our robotic overlordships!

  7. Anon

    Global warming

    Who's going to win hide-and-seek under the Arctic ice cap?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      hide-and-seek under the Arctic ice cap

      With a Diesel electric sub????

  8. SlabMan

    One word...

    ... mines.

  9. Desk Jockey
    Pirate

    International Stalking Laws?

    I guess stalking people on the high seas must be ok? Your basic sub driver can't exactly call the international police whinging at all the pinging! Personally, I would put up with it for all of a day before letting the dratted thing have 'an accident' and thus suffer an unexplained sinking event!

    If everyone took that attitude, the 'low cost' part of the idea becomes a lot more expensive! Plus I thought the whole idea was not to let the other sub know you could see them so that you could get rid of them as required. A continous yapping dog following you around is not exactly subtle!

    If however, these things were to form a large patrolling circle around a carrier group in order to drive off enemy subs, that would make more sense...

  10. Graham Marsden

    Why blow it up?

    All you need is a "blocking" ship to put itself in the way of the robo-ship and whilst it's trying to dodge past that, the sub slips silently away...

  11. yakitoo
    Pirate

    it doesn't matter too much if you lose the odd robo-frigate

    Anyone thought to ask the frigate about this?

    Shades of Dark Star spring to mind

  12. some-reg-reader
    Stop

    Scary, scary thoughts

    Speaking also from experience, the idea of "Ghost Ships" scares the hell out of me. Once upon a time every boat kept a good look out and, as required by maritime law, would respond to any may-day calls. Now days you already have super-freighters, with perhaps no more than 10 or 12 crew, driving on auto-pilot for a large part of their journey.

    They already scare me enough when sailing alone (a small sailing vessel would be almost invisible to their radar) - but at least you know there is a chance someone might be looking out, and worse-come-to-worse you can give the bridge a shout over the VHF and let them know you are there.

    The idea of large, over-powered, unmanned warship, powering through the Atlantic, really will keep me awake at night when anywhere at sea from now on! I really do hope they pick up all local VHF communications and relay them back to an actual person, 24/7.

    1. Aldous
      Unhappy

      not to mention the fact that...

      these suckers have no space for crew and if they rammed you in your small vessel they'd just plod on. imagine the poor suckers in trouble, see one of these coasting by and start letting off flares/mayday signals only to have it sail on

  13. E 2
    FAIL

    Can't these guys even spell?

    Surely they could have come up with some even more fraught terminology and called the thing ACTIVE?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Can't be legal

    There is apparently an argument that even single handed yachts are illegal in terms on international maritime law as you cannot keep a watch at all times, I don't see how an unpersonned ship could be any more legal. Still, not stopped them before, has it? And I see they use the blairite weasel words of "risk calculus" too.

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Possibly not

      But if American?

      Also in a war which has already got submarines involved no one will care about legal niceties any more.

  15. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Generally an interesting idea

    All that's left to do is to find the bloody U-boat in the first place...

    And, "inexpensive to replace"? C'mon, srsly...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    You said Frigate

    I honestly can't see anyone not (a) sinking it right off, or (b) boarding it and taking all the electronics and then scuttling it. Good thinking there.

  17. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    It will be interesting to see...

    How they will satisfy the rules laid down by the IMO in the IRPCS as they are binding.

    There are statutes laid down that states that special rules can be implemented by governments in respect to them, but those can only be implemented in said governments local waters and NOT when upon the high seas.

  18. Notas Badoff
    Pint

    Territorial waters?

    @Trygve having a laugh - think Argentina and ARA San Luis, so that makes Germany and US for two

    Think of this from a submariner's point of view. Active sonar pursuit is a hostile act. One torpedo fixes that. Don't run away - surface and standby to "lend assistance". What are the possible reactions? I think shooting up a surfaced and idling submarine will not do for good public relations.

    And anyway, all said submarine needs do is take a few strolls through other country's territorial waters and I think all eyes will be on the highly visible trespassing ACHOO (Anti-submarine warfare Continuously Hovering Obstreperous Obstacle).

    BTW: I love "relaxed reserve buoyancy margins". "No, our ACHOO didn't fire on your submarine, it just happened to sink onto it. Terribly sorry our unmanned can canned your manned can."

  19. This post has been deleted by its author

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a tremendous idea!

    Robot Planes, Robot boats, Robot(ised) soldiers. Wasn't there a SciFi novel about this rolling off into the future?

    The biggest problem with a ship is accommodating humans. If you have them land based with the boat occasionally meeting supply ship for fuel and maintenance then what is the problem? The whole issue takes place in international waters so no problem there then. A spy satellite keeps the boat in view once it has acquired a target. One on a track and as fuel diminishes a second machine rocks up and takes over the pursuit. If the boat gets away then when it is next out and acquired they can keep a log of it. Just because it can track it doesn't need to just log the acoustic signature. If a diesel electric boat is sold to any Navy then you can be sure its acoustic signature is known by the supplying nation. I know, it can be changed.

    Oh, and bollocks to the fish and other marine life that might be disturbed by active sonar.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Could be a good idea

    Subs and frigates play this game of nautical tag all the time. Similar to "Hunt for Red October" its common for attack boats to trail enemy subs around anyway.

    You'd have to have a couple guys back at a console in the U.S. monitoring the unmanned ship and the surrounding waters and being ready to take over the ship if there was a navigation threat issue or a nearby emergency or if someone tried to board the ship and loot some of the electronics or even the fuel/metal.

    Firing on an unmanned ship is still a hostile act under international law, so you can't just say "this thing is pinging my sub so I am going to blow it up". Subs get pinged all the time by other navies ships, sonobuoys, etc, so you probably can't get away with the "it pinged me so I torpedoed it" and not expect to get into a war.

    If you are being pinged, can you just surface? Doesn't that throw off the active sonar's ability to detect you? Then you just move on the surface in another direction until you separate from the unmanned ship.

  22. fishman

    Failures

    No crew on board to fix or override any system that breaks down. I can see the ship now floating out in the middle of the ocean dead because the "Windows on Warships" operating system had a blue screen of death.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Finally!

      I wondered when some saddo was going to roll out the WIndows for Warships gag. It's as funny now as it ever was.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Exactly...

    So basically the 'enemy' sub has complete control over the obedient roboship, which follows it everywhere like a dumb dog? Hey why not have a jaunt around the English Channel or some other similarly congested area? Imagine the havoc you could cause dragging a surface ship around with you from below.

    1. gollux
      Grenade

      The Wipeoff...

      Works for tailing vehicles, would work pretty well for a DumbBoat. Find maritime activity on the surface, loiter under the sea lanes until the thing becomes a nuisance. If you could get a real time traffic feed, you could test out their avoidance for blindspots. Bumper Pool, but with boats.

  24. tweell

    These are not the droids you're looking for

    Yup, these robotic ships will never ever be remote controlled. And of course they'll be totally unarmed. If you believe those statements, I have some very nice beachfront property in Arizona to sell you.

  25. Stevie

    Bah!

    [[in order to avoid getting picked up again and promptly sunk by responding ships or aircraft.]]

    From whence come these ships and aircraft? This daft robo-ship is designed to reduce the need for them, so presumably, they won't be there.

    Also, I predict these ships will soon be home to fleeing refugees, bases for Somali pirates and I dunno what-all else. Cripes, think what will happen when the pirates get their hands on unguarded roboship technology. A single pirate ship can become a flagship of a robo-regatta, threatening all who dare sail the high seas.

    The UN should demand the decommissioning of these dangerous floating fiascoes before they're built!

    Luckily, Blighty has the mighty Nimrod on which to rely against the insidious second-hand non-nuclear submarine menace and will never be drawn into trying to deploy robo-ships.

  26. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    "low cost?"

    I'll wait to se the bill first.

    Described in an old PCW short story (anyone remeber when they did those).

    Fleet of robot naval ships gradually fall silent despite nothing big enough being in the area.

    Finally someone orders an overflight.

    2 men in a rowboat with a rifle. Shooting out the sensors.

  27. Harvey Trowell

    I'm no naval strategist, but...

    What if, upon making your way out of port, you make Roboatcop follow you past a couple of chaps in a civvie trawler who accidentally drop a few tonnes of fishing nets in the way of the props?

    Propulsive overmatch my arse. Global, months long deployments with no underway human maintenance my elbow.

  28. Derek Hellam
    Thumb Down

    Silly merkins

    Conventional Diesel/electric/AIr independant/fuel cell powered subs are usually used in costal or shallow waters, not the best environment for sonar whether passive or active. This robo target, would have to enter a countries territorial waters in peace time, which makes it a legitimate target for boarding or destruction as a hazard to navigation. In war time it will still have to close in to pick up any transiting subs, making it an easy target again. Besides in nearly every naval exercise that the Americans run, where a diesel electric sub is tasked with sinking the carrier, they always succeed. They have even hired Swedish subs to practice on. The big fear is that the sub will always get in torpedo range, whether it could evade and escape afterwards I don't know. The US fears the Iranian navies submarines, which are Russian Kilo class boats with a quite a good reputation for stealth. But as always it comes down to crew training. In the Falklands conflict the argies had a couple of post war german U-boats, type 209's which if it was not for dud German weapons would have caused major problems.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_San_Luis

    Robo ship silly idea, just can't wait for it to latch on to an American sub by mistake. "where is the off switch?" LOL.

    1. gollux
      Pint

      Yep, they won't be sending...

      F15's in to shoot down the rogue Predator in this case. Wasn't something like this a scenario that the HMS Troutbridge had to evade? Real life Navy Lark, here we come!

  29. raving angry loony

    whales

    Five years later, some whale is overheard complaining that the fucking thing won't let him SLEEP with that bloody pinging, and if it follows for another day or two he's getting a posse together for some ship-slapping.

  30. Argus Tuft
    Paris Hilton

    but surely

    they could just train up a fleet of genetically engineered super dolphins to do the same thing? (maybe with little strap-on torpedoes?)

    [paris because of the strap-on thing]

  31. Monkeywrench
    Grenade

    I sense a movie here

    Fully automated robo-ship runs amok, starts attacking every vessel it encounters. NAVY Seals called in to stop it.... Sci-Fi channel take notice!

  32. Adrian Esdaile
    FAIL

    Ever heard of rouge waves?

    I hope someone at DARPA has, otherwise the first time a Robo-ship meets it's swift demise under a freak wave, the USA will nuke some 'minor' country, such as Australia or Sweden, who both run diesel subs. Unless, of course, that's THE PLAN.

    I think it's a great idea for the next Tom Clancy novel, not so good for that pesky real-life thing we have to deal with.

    1. gollux
      Headmaster

      Red Wave...

      Is that the Russian Answer?

      Wait, you meant Rogue, ok, nevermind...

  33. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Joke

    This is the Somali pirates calling

    How much will you pay for your new robot frigate?

  34. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Another point

    If active sonar becomes the thing to use, you could actively confuse it. There are several easy ways to do this (one nice trick is to launch a small torpedo-like object which generates false echos (actively) while the real sub goes and sits under some merchant vessel). Once the robofrigate has lost contact it is fairly useless

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Excuse me if someone has already pointed this out

    ...but once a country has realised that the US is sneakily following its submarines, all they have to do is sneak a couple of guys with large amounts of explosives very near the 'ghost-ship'. The country can claim to have nothing to do with the resulting explosion. Even better if the ghost-ship is destroyed inside that countrys waters - then they can claim it was an act of agression from the US that was only prevented by a chance terrorist activity...

    The sub itself has to do nothing. After this has happened five or six times, the US will rethink this idea.

  36. Neil Stansbury
    FAIL

    No Not Quite....

    This is actually what the Americans are now implimenting for mine hunting (amongst other missions):

    http://www.gdlcs.com/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Independence_%28LCS-2%29

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPufnytAMUk

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1uZfwws2WI

    This was the rather embarassingly implemented and ugly concept attempt by the Royal Navy:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RV_Triton

    As the LCS is a snip at $208 M each, we do seem to have rather managed to forget our Naval history lessons, perhaps we need to hire another Samuel Pepys.

  37. Ian 54
    Stop

    can't be legal...

    So this is going to be in accordance with the rules as described in the article? Good Luck, rule 5 says "Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision." With intermittent communication back to base how exactly are they keeping a look-out by sight and hearing???

    Of course this being the US they'll probably ingonore the inconvenient bits and say they comply...

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Terminator

      that depends

      on whether you think robots can see and hear.

  38. mhenriday

    The only things these vessels will [help to] sink

    is a US economy which is already awash. But some people do stand to make huge profits from these boondoggles....

    Henri

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Uhhh fuck the lot of them.

    Bit sick of this "cyberwar robot masturbation frenzy".

    Starting to think that the citiens of their own countries ought to be able to attack and sink and shoot down all of the robo-killer madness machines and the people and factories that make them.

    Speaking of idiots and arseholes, I look forward to the day these shitheads sail their junk past Somalia. Megamillion Roboship vs, thieving pricks in a rubber dingy.

    Should be fun.

    I hope they post the video of them smashing it's computer brain in with a rifle butt on Youtube.

  40. number06
    Thumb Up

    A seagoing BOLO?

    Would be really cool. Fire control could be automated, so the ship would automatically fight back if threatened or attacked. No crew to risk, no chance of anyone taken hostage. No need for food or water or bunks, so more room for fuel, ammunition, armor, and so on. In addition to hunting subs, ships like this could be used to constantly monitor suspected pirate bases, terror camps located near the coast, and so on. In a way this would be a very good way to save on limited manpower. Since they could stay at sea in large numbers they could also act as a blockade force (off the Somalian coast perhaps?) as required.

    All in all, a very good idea.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Everyone watch out - I'm looking for you.

    With more than a little experience in the matters here, I agree with a lot of the faults mentioned.

    However, unmentioned and probably most important, is the difficulty of initial acquisition. The vision presumes the ghost-tracker already has it, but a noisy (pinging) surface ASW sonar is one of the easiest things for a submarine (even a slow one) to avoid as its passive sonar hears the pinger at a vastly greater distance than the pinger can hear its own sonar's echo off the sub. For starters, consider the acoustic two-way travel, then the added attenuation experienced in littoral waters, etc. Given that small, stealthy, diesel-electric/sterling-engined/fuel-celled subs with added anechoic coating are exceptionally difficult to detect in shallow littoral zones when stationary - and doubly so if they have plenty of time to evade - this thing sounds like a non-starter. Also, regarding initial acquisition, they are assuming software as sophisticated as the brainy-ear of a trained and experienced sonarman - ears that are the select of the best and practiced for years in all manner of conditions to achieve competence - unless, of course, they plan a real-time data-link to a sonarman in Gackle, North Dakota.

  42. Christo99

    Costs - from someone who knows

    From another forum where I posted this story:

    ' . . By the way, I passed this thread on to my wants-to-remain-anonymous contact at the Pentagon and he responded "One thing he is wrong about though...unmanned is NOT cheaper than manned (yet)...satcom time is eating our lunch."'

    http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/forum/ceilidh.htm#88924

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