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Darpa 'Defiant' Unmanned Autonomous Ship
Defiant, an unmanned ocean-going vessel, is under development by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
(DARPA vessel Defiant)
Conceived as being capable of operating autonomously for months to years with minimal maintenance, the vessel is already being eyed by the Navy as a path to fielding a fleet of missile-laden drone boats in the future.Defiant is being procured under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) program, which aims to field a new medium uncrewed surface vessel (MUSV) prototype. The NOMARS program was launched in 2020, and Serco’s involvement in it stretches back to that time.
In 2022, the company was awarded a $68.5 million total-value contract to build, test, and demonstrate its solution as the prime contractor. This is all prior to the start of more rigorous at-sea testing, which a representative for Serco confirmed to The War Zone on the floor of the Navy League’s Sea Air Space symposium this week is scheduled to start in January 2025.
(Via TWZ.)
In Paradise and Iron, by Golden Age science fiction writer Miles J. Breuer, published by Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1930, an amazing autonomous ship is described.
A big searchlight in the bows rotated slowly on its pivot until its lens was turned squarely on me, and I caught a distorted reflection of myself in its depths; and then it turned back into its original position. It gave mo a creepy, momentary impression of a huge eye that had looked at me, stared for a moment, and then looked away again.In a few moments the ship was slipping along at considerable speed between the jetties, and Galveston was only a serrated purple skyline astern...
It was a queer ship. Even though my knowledge of ships was limited to what I had acquired during a few years’ residence in a seaport city, I could see that it was an uncommonly built and arranged vessel.
There was no wheel, and no steersman! The usual site of the wheel and binnacle was occupied by a cabin with some instruments in it; nor could I find anywhere any signs of anything resembling steering-gear. How was the ship piloted? Who was watching the course? There wasn’t a lookout to be seen anywhere! Yet the ship had picked a tortuous course from its dock down the harbor and between the jetties...
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