US Navy’s autonomous boats can “swarm” enemies

The US Navy has a cool new trick up its sleeve , its unmanned boats can now autonomously swarm enemy targets. The technology is called CARACaS (Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing) and it can be fitted on any boat, allowing it to operate either autonomously, or as a part of a “swarm.”

The U.S. Navy is getting ready to “swarm” its adversaries. The Office of Naval Research over the weekend 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.