China Launches an Autonomous Mothership Full of Autonomous Drones

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: China christened a remarkable new 290-foot ship last week -- the world's first semi-autonomous drone carrier. It'll carry, launch, recover and co-ordinate the actions of more than 50 other autonomous aerial, surface and underwater vehicles. The Huangpu Wenchong Shipyard began construction on the Zhu Hai Yun last July in Guangzhou. According to the South China Morning Post, it's the first carrier of its kind, a self-contained autonomous platform that will roll out with everything necessary to perform a fully integrated operation including drone aircraft, boats and submersibles. [...] Zhu Hai Yun will run on remote control until it's out in the open water, and then its self-driving systems will take over to execute whatever mission it's running. It's kitted out with everything it needs to deploy its own boats, subs and aircraft, communicate with them, and run co-ordinated missions, including conducting "task-oriented adaptive networking to achieve three-dimensional views of specific targets," according to the shipbuilding company. The aerial drones can land back on its deck, and it stands ready to retrieve the boats and subs once they've made their rounds. While it's mainly pitched as an ocean research platform, the SCMP also reports that it has "military capability to intercept and expel invasive targets," a capability at the forefront of many autonomous marine projects. "Please note that Beijing went from laying down a new class of ship to christening in less than a year," adds the reader.

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