The U.S. Navy is getting ready to “swarm” its adversaries.
The Office of Naval Research recently released video of tests conducted in August that showed five “drone” boats swarming a vessel that posed a threat to a Navy ship.
“The U.S. Navy is unleashing a new era in advanced ship protection,” the service says in the video.
Controlled by what the Navy calls Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS), a sensor and software kit that is transferable among small vessels, a fleet of more than a dozen small unmanned boats cruise along the James River in Virginia, setting up a protective screen on a Navy research ship.
When a threatening vessel is detected, five boats break off to confront it.
“If I was the actual target it would be pretty intimidating to see five boats rushing at me,” Sam Calabrese, pilot of the “bad guy” vessel, said in the Navy video.
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