Crewless first for UK’s Royal Navy to become the norm
December 9, 2024By Seawork Press FP
Royal Navy
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A crewless boat has been manoeuvred around the waters of the UK’s Solent – remotely controlled from a Royal Navy vessel in a first in UK waters.
A Pacific 24 rigid-inflatable craft, the Royal Navy’s mainstay of small boat operations such as rescues, intercepting drug runners and moving sailors from ship to shore, was both remotely and autonomously piloted from experimentation ship XV Patrick Blackett while the pair sailed off the coast of Portsmouth, UK.
While the APAC (Autonomous PACific) was previously trialled in Portugal with NATO partners at Exercise Repmus, this was the first time it’s been done in home waters; through the busy waterways of Portsmouth Harbour, successfully navigating around ferries, other Royal Navy vessels and private boats.
The week-long trials, run by the Royal Navy’s autonomous experts NavyX, pushed the uncrewed vessel to its limits with rough seas and even snow testing its systems and software in a range of operational scenarios.
Commander Michael Hutchinson, commanding officer of XV Patrick Blackett and part of the NavyX team, said, “Integrating crewed and uncrewed systems and operating them at the same time is a huge step forward for the Royal Navy.
“This is the first time a fully autonomous and crewless boat has been operated in UK waters and we have achieved this throughout the week in different conditions and completing a range of tests.
“It forms the backbone for further integration that future ships will have with autonomous technology. The trials and experiments we do will develop the Standard Operating Procedures for the APAC and how to use uncrewed systems effectively for warfighting.”
An autonomous RIB could be deployed to do recces, as a force protector against threats and even to launch weapons – minimising the risk to sailors who might otherwise be tasked with those missions.
Commander Hutchinson added, “What’s great about these trials and this piece of kit is it’s something we already have and something the Royal Navy already deploys. But adapting it to be used autonomously means we can do more with it and use it for a wider range of operations.” Currently, the APAC can be controlled at short range from the XV Patrick Blackett but sensors on a drone flown from the ship could extend that range. And with more trials planned next year, the NavyX team hope to build on their successes.
“Running the APAC in and out of Portsmouth Harbour is something we want to do more often and make it the norm,” Commander Hutchinson said.
“We want other ships and boats to be used to that and we can keep pushing the message that we can do it and we can do it safely. This is what XV Patrick Blackett is for. It’s a trials and evaluation ships that can develop operating manuals for technology and see what works, what doesn’t and how we get it ready for further use by the Fleet.”
The XV Patrick Blackett was a welcome visitor to Seawork on opening day in 2023.
