An Cosantóir

45 THE NEXT 75 YRS THE NEXT 75 YEARS? Chinese HSU-001 Unmanned Submarine Drones Photo Imagine China via AP Images The autonomous future of naval warfare Photo: www.rowse.co.uk By Sgt Brendan Cruise, LLB, MA "A good Navy is not a provocation of war. It is the surest guarantee of peace" US President Theodore Roosevelt 02 Dec 1902 It's difficult to imagine what the first sailors of the newly formed Irish Naval Service in 1946 would think about the technology, operations, and personnel of today's modern flotilla. Would they think that modern sailors have gone 'soft' because of technology? Would they be surprised at the high standard and diversity of current naval operations? What would be their opinion of having a female captain of a warship? For the large part, only speculation can answer these types of questions, but these thoughts about the past can also lead to considerations such as: what will the Irish Navy look like 75 years in the future? It would be hard to see the Navy doing anything else other than embrace the rapidly developing technology of the world today. Evolving technology allow for high-level system performance analysis of dynamic systems thus giving decision-makers the insight they need to make confident choices while speeding up any risk analysis process. New technology on ship bridges will radically assist ships manoeuvring in narrow fairways, under difficult weather conditions making vast calculations in the blink of an eye. This type of system may help reduce situations such as the recent Suez Canal blockage. Ships may be able to 'talk' to each other through a system called Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships. This is being developed with the aim of creating fully autonomous systems that replace the role of human operators; thus potentially bringing about the demise of the Midshipman - although one or two may be kept to ensure that the toll bridge at Dublin's East Link is paid. Additionally, International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea requires there to be a human lookout present, in order to avoid collisions. The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea require ships to be able to assist in search and rescue operations, such as picking up survivors of a shipwreck. New systems will offer a finite number of safe solutions, focusing on supporting collision detection in meeting and overtaking situations (for manned ships) or solving conflict automatically (for unmanned ships), much like Traffic Collision Avoidance System - which is found in modern aircraft. Navigation, route analyses and port operations will all become automated, by utilising advanced simulators and customised software. While the potential for this technology is endless, fully autonomous ships cannot replace all the manual ships overnight. Therefore, it is more than possible that the future waterborne transport system will include both human-operated and autonomous vessels. The Gunnery Bay may see an upgrade in training of advanced weapons systems. One forerunner in this area is the AN/ SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System or LaWS. This is a US weapons system currently deployed on the USS Portland and is designed to be a defensive laser weapon used against low- end asymmetric threats. It has scalable power levels that allow it to be used on low-power to dazzle a person's eye to non-lethally make them turn away from a threatening posture. It can have its power outage increased to 30 thousand watts to destroy sensors, burn out motors and detonate explosive materials. The LaWS has been used to shoot down small UAVs in as little as two seconds. It is also effective against larger aircraft, such as a helicopter, as LaWS can burn through some vital components, causing engine failure. When facing

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