Oceans of Drones

Interesting piece from the Economist on expanding ocean surveillance in a variety of causes, including military Avast, me hearties: How aquatic, autonomous robots could reduce lawlessness at sea

As the cost of building and operating such vehicles drops, satellite communications systems provide cheaper and faster connectivity, and machine intelligence improves, drones could provide a powerful means of policing illegal activities that take place, unseen, at sea. Powered by wave action, wind power or solar panels, drones could operate for months or even years at a time, scanning large areas in swarms, monitoring environmental conditions and alerting human overseers when something looks amiss. If drones ruled the waves, fisheries would be more sustainable, pollution would be reduced and human trafficking would be harder to get away with. Even if drones can monitor only a small fraction of the ocean’s surface, their presence could be a powerful deterrent.

We touched on the use of AI and drone assets in our last Midrats - especially in the building of databases through which anomalous behavior can be detected and tracked, about 48 minutes in, though the discussion that preceded got to that point.









Hat tip to Lee.