DARPA Sea Hunter is the World's Largest Self-Driving Ship
Posted on May 15, 2016
DARPA recently unveiled the world's largest self-driving ship. The Sea Hunter is a 132 feet long unmanned ship. It was designed to travel up to 10,000 miles on its own.
DARPA says in the announcement that the Sea Hunter represents a new class of ocean vessel that can travel thousands of kilometers over open seas for months at a time without a crew. The military says the ship will always have remote human supervision.
Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work says, "I've been waiting for this day for a long time. I'm on a ship that looks like a Klingon bird of prey. It's haze gray. If you look up front at the pilot house you'll notice big bolts. You can take that pilot house off and this ship can operate autonomously."
IEEE Spectrum reports that the Sea Hunter was developed by U.S. defense contractor Leidos under DARPA’s ACTUV program. It was original developed to track quiet diesel electric submarines as you can see here.
Here are a couple videos of the Sea Hunter:
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