Photo: Saab
Autonomy is something our world is getting increasingly hooked on. From the drones that fly in our skies to the cars that drive on our roads, autonomy is probably what's going to drive our world forward in the near future. And now, thanks to Swedish defense contractor Saab, naval vessels join the party with even more determination.
Saab announced this week the arrival of something called the Autonomous Ocean Core. Technically a hardware and software suite, the tech is described as a ready-to-use autonomous control system meant to turn surface and subsurface ships into autonomous platforms that can be used by both the military and the civilian worlds.
This being the sensitive system that it is, many of its component parts are not public knowledge. What we know about the Core is that it comes as an open architecture and it’s meant to provide its handlers with "baseline autonomy."
The Core comprises a control system that's installed on the ship, and the remote control center. It can be deployed on either brand-new ships or as a retrofit on existing ones because it is essentially a plug-and-play affair. The Autonomous Ocean Core can work on its own, or integrated with other systems, including navigation systems, electronic warfare hardware, radar systems, and sensors or effectors of various kinds.
Saab designed the technology to be used on ships meant to perform mine detection and clearing missions, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) activities, and electronic warfare operations.
There are four maneuver modes used by the tech to govern a ship in an autonomous fashion, with each of these modes allowing precise control over a platform - all its operators are required to do is input the vessel's parameters into the motion control function.
The mission maneuver mode controls the ship from departure to docking, going from one mission point to another. Each of these points can require different payloads, capabilities, and ship behavior. When the ship needs to be kept in check, the vector maneuver mode kicks in.
Should the link connecting the ship to its operator go down, the direct maneuver mode can be used. Finally, the position mode is a sort of idle the system falls back one when no other mode is selected.
Aside from the above, the core also relies on three operational modes: local safety, used when training, external safety (like stopping automatically when the link is down), and the ever-spectacular assault mode that essentially give the ship permission to operate without a link and with no performance limits.
When running the Autonomous Ocean Core, a ship, be it an unpretentious one or a high-inertia, high-energy machine, can depart a location, navigate mission zones while avoiding obstacles, and dock when finished.
There is also a fleet management feature included that allows the Core to network individual ships, and to allow handovers between maintenance personnel and mission specialists, even if some of them are not located in the same place as the ship.
Saab has already included the Autonomous Ocean Core for testing and development onto a platform called Enforcer 3.1, based in San Diego, and the Enforcer 3.2, based in Sweden. There is no timeline yet for when the tech will be deployed on active duty.
This being the sensitive system that it is, many of its component parts are not public knowledge. What we know about the Core is that it comes as an open architecture and it’s meant to provide its handlers with "baseline autonomy."
The Core comprises a control system that's installed on the ship, and the remote control center. It can be deployed on either brand-new ships or as a retrofit on existing ones because it is essentially a plug-and-play affair. The Autonomous Ocean Core can work on its own, or integrated with other systems, including navigation systems, electronic warfare hardware, radar systems, and sensors or effectors of various kinds.
Saab designed the technology to be used on ships meant to perform mine detection and clearing missions, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) activities, and electronic warfare operations.
There are four maneuver modes used by the tech to govern a ship in an autonomous fashion, with each of these modes allowing precise control over a platform - all its operators are required to do is input the vessel's parameters into the motion control function.
The mission maneuver mode controls the ship from departure to docking, going from one mission point to another. Each of these points can require different payloads, capabilities, and ship behavior. When the ship needs to be kept in check, the vector maneuver mode kicks in.
Should the link connecting the ship to its operator go down, the direct maneuver mode can be used. Finally, the position mode is a sort of idle the system falls back one when no other mode is selected.
Aside from the above, the core also relies on three operational modes: local safety, used when training, external safety (like stopping automatically when the link is down), and the ever-spectacular assault mode that essentially give the ship permission to operate without a link and with no performance limits.
When running the Autonomous Ocean Core, a ship, be it an unpretentious one or a high-inertia, high-energy machine, can depart a location, navigate mission zones while avoiding obstacles, and dock when finished.
There is also a fleet management feature included that allows the Core to network individual ships, and to allow handovers between maintenance personnel and mission specialists, even if some of them are not located in the same place as the ship.
Saab has already included the Autonomous Ocean Core for testing and development onto a platform called Enforcer 3.1, based in San Diego, and the Enforcer 3.2, based in Sweden. There is no timeline yet for when the tech will be deployed on active duty.
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