/ News
Here’s How Darpa’s Robot Ship Will Hunt Silent Subs
Submariners like to say there are two kinds of ships: subs and targets. The Pentagon’s futurists want to turn that aphorism on its head, and develop a new kind of surface ship that can turn a sub into a target. Naturally, the sub-hunter won’t have a human on board. Here’s how it’s going to work.
The video above is a new promotional piece of machinima (do people still say that?) released by the defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation, which has a $58 million contract with Darpa to build its unmanned sub-hunter of the future. That maritime robot, called the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vehicle, or ACTUV, doesn’t exist yet and won’t for years. But here SAIC at least sketches out how the long, thin and “radically different” ACTUV can keep surface ships from becoming targets.
The really interesting thing here is how different the surface-gliding ACTUV is from the now-familiar drones that litter the skies. Even the longest-flying drones can only stay in the air for 30 hours or so. SAIC intends for this thing to stay on a hunt for 60 to 90 days.
What’s more, SAIC is designing the ACTUV to be way more autonomous than contemporary drone aircraft: After a sailor powers it up and helps guide it out of port, she can go on a long vacation while the ACTUV speeds out to the open water to use its long-range acquisition sonar and other advanced sensors to scan for submarines, while automatically steering clear of any nearby surface ships.
Assuming SAIC isn’t over-promising (much), the sonar pods underneath the belly of the ACTUV create an acoustic image of a submarine and pursue it at high speed — although that’s something that can only happen when the ACTUV gets fairly close to its quarry. (More on that in a second.) Once the ACTUV thinks it’s got something, it pings nearby Navy ships through a satellite link. If a sailor thinks the ACTUV has made a mistake, he can convey that back to the unmanned ship and it’ll move on.
If not, the ACTUV operates alongside the fleet, with coordination not often seen with aerial drone tactics. SAIC apparently wants the ACTUV in constant communication with a mothership and Naval aircraft that would fly overhead and drop sonar charges to hunt the mystery sub, with the ACTUV speeding along to keep pace with the swift submarine. SAIC seems to intend for the ACTUV to follow the sub back to its home port (!) if necessary, or until a human in the fleet commands it to break contact. The ACTUV, in case you were wondering, isn’t armed.
How all this will happen isn’t yet clear. The subs that really give the U.S. Navy pause are cheap diesel-electric models, which are technologically puny compared to the Navy’s nuclear-powered subs but can be much quieter and harder to track. Russia sells them; Iran claims to have them. SAIC’s video suggests that the ACTUV can’t actually find the diesel-electric sub on its own: The scenario here depends on a Navy commander suspecting there’s an enemy sub in the area and deploying a P8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft (successor to the P-3C Orion) to drop sonar buoys to find it. The ACTUV sprints out in a certain pattern while “predict[ing] that long-range sensors will be able to completely envelop” the area where the sub might be “and prevent successful evasion.” So not an exact science, but its sonars are said to get more precise the closer the ACTUV gets to the suspected sub target.
The on-board hardware described generically in the video relies on “collected data and sophisticated logics” to “infer the intent” of watercraft. So that should at least make the ACTUV cognizant of any sizable metal thing that seems to be tracking a Navy ship. And if SAIC is right that the ACTUV can really hear the diesel-electric subs, then that enemy sub really may become the ocean’s newest target.
Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/actuv
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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