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China

China Launches an Autonomous Mothership Full of Autonomous Drones (newatlas.com) 84

Posted by BeauHD from the drones-on-drones-on-drones dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: China christened a remarkable new 290-foot ship last week -- the world's first semi-autonomous drone carrier. It'll carry, launch, recover and co-ordinate the actions of more than 50 other autonomous aerial, surface and underwater vehicles. The Huangpu Wenchong Shipyard began construction on the Zhu Hai Yun last July in Guangzhou. According to the South China Morning Post, it's the first carrier of its kind, a self-contained autonomous platform that will roll out with everything necessary to perform a fully integrated operation including drone aircraft, boats and submersibles. [...] Zhu Hai Yun will run on remote control until it's out in the open water, and then its self-driving systems will take over to execute whatever mission it's running.

It's kitted out with everything it needs to deploy its own boats, subs and aircraft, communicate with them, and run co-ordinated missions, including conducting "task-oriented adaptive networking to achieve three-dimensional views of specific targets," according to the shipbuilding company. The aerial drones can land back on its deck, and it stands ready to retrieve the boats and subs once they've made their rounds. While it's mainly pitched as an ocean research platform, the SCMP also reports that it has "military capability to intercept and expel invasive targets," a capability at the forefront of many autonomous marine projects. "Please note that Beijing went from laying down a new class of ship to christening in less than a year," adds the reader.
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China Launches an Autonomous Mothership Full of Autonomous Drones More

China Launches an Autonomous Mothership Full of Autonomous Drones

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  • More money for military industrial complex (Score:4, Funny)

    by khchung ( 462899 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2022 @11:36PM (#62563660) Journal

    Quick! The US DOD must ask Congress to give them a few more billions of dollars to catch up!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JanSand ( 5746424 )
      The huge uneasinesses with the possibilities of AI taking control of vital areas of civilization seems to ignore the rapid growth of even more ordinary automatic systems in all areas with seemingly humans at vital points to prevent massive disasters. But humans, as history has indicated, are often driven by wide ignorances as to unconsidered horribly dangerous possibilities and total controls delegated to automatic self controlled military systems do not need super intellects to create unexpected horrors. T

      • The continuous failures since WWII of the serious military actions in south eastern Asia and the Middle East...

        Assuming you're talking about US military actions, you are incorrect. The Korean War was a dramatic success. The first Gulf War was a dramatic success. The second Gulf War, though ultimately launched on false pretenses, was a military success and has at least led to a modicum of a functioning democracy. The campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria was also a success.

        The Afghanistan and Vietnam War were both utter failures. But that is not the whole of US military action over the last 80 years.

        • Undoubtedly, the success for the US weapons industries was phenomenal and if you measure democracy as the 72 million voters who voted in the last presidential election for Trump, then the hugely successful regimes of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the joyful regimes in Iraq and Liberia are wonders to behold. No doubt, success as well as beauty lays in the eyes of the beholder.
    • I dont get why US insists on buying expensive US made weapons instead of just buying them at a low price from China. Ukraine seems to be doing fine beating the Russians with Russian made weapons so its not like US cant beat China with Chinese made weapons
      • It hasn't gone as well for Ukraine as you think. But Ukraine is using the very best Western weapons now, as all the old weapons are pretty much destroyed or broken. So, at this point, it's unclear how the war is gonna go; But, very likely both sides end up settling for less than they want

      • Because during a war china will happily keep on supplying the weapons and parts to an enemy, right? Not to mention that they'd almost certainly have kill switches built in.

        Were you born this dumb or did it take years of practice?

      • While "Soviet" era weapons are used extensively by Ukrainians, most of them were upgraded (or even their upgrades were upgraded). After all, the Soviet Union broke about 30 years ago.
        Also, Ukraine is not beating Russia - as the Russian occupy quite a lot (and very important) Ukrainian land, and at this moment it seems the Russians are the ones advancing (Ukraine has had quite a lot of successes, but they are very far from beating Russia).

    • EMP on land would be horrible - think of all the dead phones. Now out at sea, that would be ok, and nobody would actually be hurt. Hope they have a valve transmitter and a Kettering diesel so it can limp home to port with its tail between its legs.

      • This is why the MOD has a fleet of Morris Minors mothballed and ready for use in just such a scenario. It's also the reason Russia still has aircraft which use valve technology.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nasch ( 598556 )

        Obviously I know nothing about this ship, but military hardware is typically shielded against EMPs. It's possible this ship is as well.

        • Unable to confirm a second source, but it is rumored that antennas - conduct. Now heavy shielding may be added to a ship, but drones with heavy shielding will cost, and increase their radar and heat signatures.A phased array, can also play havoc, see certain missile defense systems. In fact the fuzz are playing with drone buster toys that look like a Yagi antenna connected to an RF amp radiating 10Khz harmonics. A possible weakness is inductive charging - also acts like an antenna. Otherwise see https://d.i [ibtimes.co.uk]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by nasch ( 598556 )

            Yeah I don't see the aerial drones being shielded at all, but losing those would be less of a problem than the whole ship.

  • The perfect use case for Metal Storm [youtube.com].

  • Surely this will have a crew or support craft (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25, 2022 @12:15AM (#62563758)

    Ships are notoriously maintenance-heavy operations. Do they have robots that can fix everything that will inevitably go wrong?

    Reads like a PR stunt to me but who knows.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      I have heard "Working in the military is easier than working as an Amazon picker" Well robots can pick so how difficult can it be to maintain ships with robots
      • Depends on the particular job in the military. There are jobs in the military that are absolute cake. There are jobs that are tremendously complex and technical. And there are jobs that demand extreme levels of mental and physical toughness.

    • Of course it will have a crew. Are aircraft carriers or sub tenders crewless? Even if the aircraft or subs are drones, there is no reason to think their support ship will also be a drone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nasch ( 598556 )

        "The Intelligent, unmanned ship is a beautiful new 'marine species' that will bring revolutionary changes for ocean observation," said Professor Dake Chen of the Chinese Academy of Science's School of Oceanography.

        Though the photo (render?) on the article clearly shows people on the ship.

    • Dictatorships almost always over promise and under deliver with weapony. Look at russia with its "hypersonic" missiles and cutting edge ships. Yeah, they've worked so well in ukraine. And north korea with its ballistic missiles that crash or blow up half the time.

      For these sorts of countries defense posturing is just another way for the psychopath in charge to inflate his ego.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Might make more sense to give it extra redundancy. They already saved a lot of space and expensive equipment by not having to keep a human crew comfortable.

  • "An autonomous reader quotes a report"
  • ..when some hacker(s) take control of the whole thing and do something hilarious with it.
    But of course it's China, so this is all bullshit.

    • ..when some hacker(s) take control of the whole thing and do something hilarious with it. But of course it's China, so this is all bullshit.

      I think someone should take it over and rebrand it as a Cylon invasion. Then it sinks itself. That would be freaking hilarious.

    • Ya not practical for war... but damb it looks to be a fun toy. :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Perhaps not practical for combat. It might be great for intelligence gathering, or some other special missions.

        OTOH, compare the price of one of these to the price of an aircraft carrier. You could probably afford 1000 times as many of these. They're differently capable, however, so you couldn't use them the same way. Even so...

  • Don't they have enough soldiers ? Or is the real point to have military power that can be fully commanded by the dictator. Even against own rebellion soldiers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Each of their soldiers have 2 parents and 4 grandparents to support. They cant afford to die
  • Ukraine even got a few of these. https://www.droneshield.com/dr... [droneshield.com] 1 shot from this can take entire ship of drones?

  • From the article:

    "While it's mainly pitched as an ocean research platform, the SCMP also reports that it has 'military capability to intercept and expel invasive targets," "

    • Research into how to own the US Navy on the high seas.

      • There's no way. Near land? Sure, you can hit it with thousands of land-based missiles.

        Out on the high seas? A US carrier group is invincible.

        • "Out on the high seas? A US carrier group is invincible."

          Some would beg to differ.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L26RZdmQ2nE [youtube.com]

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcTZZUu5awQ [youtube.com]

          • Yeah, the Chinese "surprised" the carrier. What did you want them to do, sink the submarine?

            • The Swedish sub also surprised them. In fact, it came and went at will so often the US forces tasked with defending against it got discouraged.

              Still, you're probably right. We all know that in wartime, enemies never launch surprise attacks. And they would certainly never consider a suicide mission. That's never happened before, either.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          US carriers have been sunk in war games by diesel subs, and Soviet doctrine was to overwhelm the anti-air defences with massed missiles.

          You have to be lucky (subs), spend a lot of money (missiles) or be crazy (nukes) to take out a carrier, but it's certainly possible.

  • Should be interesting (Score:3)

    by rantrantrant ( 4753443 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2022 @07:23AM (#62564336)
    Let's see what happens when you leave artificial stupidity in control of all that hardware.
    • The current state of civilization demonstrates that human stupidity is a skill that humanity has perfected over many centuries to the point that is far beyond any theoretical artificial duplication can match or even faintly approach.
    • So... does the summon feature of this one work better than Tesla's?

  • Autonomous? The ship has a bridge and cabins ... (Score:3)

    by fygment ( 444210 ) on Wednesday May 25, 2022 @08:27AM (#62564484)

    ... so there will be people embarked. Maybe autonomous refers only to the embarked drones? And there are no autonomous ships on this scale and likely never will be. It takes a lot of maintenance to keep a ship running. Plus:

    1. military capability is zero. Big target, limited drone range, hard to figure what this would threaten except maybe small fishing vessels?
    2. didn't actually see the thing in the water. Maybe this is just a mock-up? The ship was put together pretty quickly by any standard ... during a pandemic ... just saying

    No idea why the Chinese or anyone might put out something like this.

  • "Carrier has arrived." Just remember, you want to shoot the Carrier, not the damn drones.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Budenny ( 888916 )

      You are proposing, for instance, to land a large expeditionary force on some territory, after a long channel crossing. You propose a fleet of these things, running swarms of drones, to provide intelligence and to do swarming attacks on defenders. To protect your landings and to take out defensive positions and vehicles including tanks.

      Its true the ships would be exposed to anti-ship missiles like the rest of your landing fleet as they move into range of the coast. But maybe you have plans to take out the

  • Just need to paint it yellow and make it float in the air

  • Do you want Bolos? Because this is how you get Bolos!
  • We, as a species had so many chances to avoid what is to come.

  • no people on board? blow it out of the water.

  • Hard to see it as anti-carrier weapon. A swarm of drones might be very effective impeding takeoff and landing from a carrier, but how would you get the mothership close enough unnoticed?

    I am no expert, but hypersonic missiles, launched in quantity, would seem to be the decisive weapon against carriers and may do what the shoulder launched anti-tank weapons have done to tanks in the Ukraine. And the Middle East.

    You can perhaps imagine it being very effective in a coastal landing invasion as long as the att

  • Has nobody connected these facts to this story [slashdot.org]?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chill ( 34294 )

      Came here to say exactly this. It seems putting 2 + 2 together is getting a little tough for the Slashdot crowd these days.

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