Editorial

Royal Navy looks to AI to create ‘Intelligent Ships’

Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) announces first wave of £4m funding in plan for ‘Revolutionary Artificial Intelligence warship contracts’

Posted 16 January 2020 by Gary Flood


The Ministry of Defence has announced plans to “revolutionise the way warships make decisions and process thousands of strands of intelligence and data” via AI (Artificial Intelligence).

The plan: develop technology and innovative solutions to overcome increasing ‘information overload’ faced by crews as competition.

Co-ordinated by the Government’s ‘Defence and Security Accelerator’ (DASA), nine initial projects have been approved for exploring the potential for its so-say ‘Intelligent Ship – The Next Generation’ idea, announced in July.

The nine will all share an initial £1m of what is promised to eventually be more like four times the amount.

“The astonishing pace at which global threats are evolving requires new approaches and fresh-thinking to the way we develop our ideas and technology,” claimed Defence Minister James Heappey.

“[This] funding will research pioneering projects into how AI and automation can support our armed forces in their essential day-to-day work.”

‘Intelligent Ship’ is focused on inventive approaches for Human-AI and AI-AI teaming for defence platforms – such as warships, aircraft, and land vehicles – in 2040 and beyond.

DASA, on behalf of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), is looking at how future defence platforms can be designed and optimised to exploit current and future advances in:

  • Automation
  • Autonomy
  • Machine learning
  • Artificial Intelligence

The partners say this work will “inform requirements then develop applications essential to the future force in an increasingly complex and AI-driven environment”.

DASA adds that, although titled Intelligent Ship, a warship is just the prototype demonstrator for this competition, and the project will inform development relevant to all defence equipment and military services.

“This competition has the potential to lead the transformation of our defence platforms, leading to a sea change in the relationships between AI and human teams,” added Julia Tagg, technical lead from Dstl.

“This will ensure UK defence remains an effective, capable force for good in a rapidly changing technological landscape

“Crews are already facing information overload with thousands of sources of data, intelligence, and information. By harnessing automation, autonomy, machine learning and artificial intelligence with the real-life skill and experience of our men and women, we can revolutionise the way future fleets are put together and operate to keep the UK safe.”

The competition, currently backed by a total of £4 million over two phases, has the potential to transform the way the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force equipment platforms are designed, work together, operated and manned by the 2040s.

Innovations developed in phase 1 of the competition could later help determine the different platform types, size and role of future platforms as well potentially being adapted and integrated into the existing fleet.

No further details of which projects won the funding in the Competition, which closed on July 23rd, have as yet been revealed.