AI-Equipped Underwater Drones Helping US Navy Scan for Threats
(Bloomberg) -- The US Navy is boosting its deployment of artificial intelligence that automatically detect targets after successfully testing it on underwater drones, according to defense officials.
The effort from the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, a California-based office that aims to bring commercial technology into the military, has helped cut in half the time it takes to comb the ocean floor for underwater mines, said Alex Campbell, the unit’s Navy service lead.
The Navy is now introducing new production contracts to expand the use of the technology in undersea drones and explore how it can be used to identify enemy ships, planes and other threats, Campbell said.
The Navy has been testing machine learning algorithms that rely on sonar sensors to detect underwater shapes and navigate the ocean floor, according to Nick Ksiazek, a US Marines Corps major who works in DIU’s AI portfolio and is leading the project. The Navy launched the project with the DIU two years ago, Ksiazek said.