Autonomous marine vessels near Scottish submarine base

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Bird on a Fire
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Autonomous marine vessels near Scottish submarine base

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Oct 08, 2020 9:52 pm

This is a bit creepy, if you don't like the idea of unmanned satellite-controlled surveillance boats, with no (public) way of tracking the owner, spying on defence infrastructure.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/unmanne ... -scotland/

Forbes reports there was a similar one nearby this time last year. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambl ... 0cf37f541f

Navy denying all knowledge. But then, I suppose they might anyway.
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OneOffDave
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Re: Autonomous marine vessels near Scottish submarine base

Post by OneOffDave » Fri Oct 09, 2020 7:52 am

If you find it and no one claims it then you've got yourself a boat! AIS often shows a drone boat being tested in the Solent off Gosport. Usually escorted by one of the Harbourmaster vessels from Portsmouth

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Re: Autonomous marine vessels near Scottish submarine base

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Oct 09, 2020 12:01 pm

OneOffDave wrote:
Fri Oct 09, 2020 7:52 am
If you find it and no one claims it then you've got yourself a boat! AIS often shows a drone boat being tested in the Solent off Gosport. Usually escorted by one of the Harbourmaster vessels from Portsmouth
A military one, or a science one? Lots of oceanography departments around Southampton/Portsmouth as well as the Navy installations.

Presumably these ones had their tracking disabled and didn't show up on AIS, because otherwise it would be pretty easy to figure out where they come from.
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Re: Autonomous marine vessels near Scottish submarine base

Post by OneOffDave » Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:34 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Oct 09, 2020 12:01 pm
OneOffDave wrote:
Fri Oct 09, 2020 7:52 am
If you find it and no one claims it then you've got yourself a boat! AIS often shows a drone boat being tested in the Solent off Gosport. Usually escorted by one of the Harbourmaster vessels from Portsmouth
A military one, or a science one? Lots of oceanography departments around Southampton/Portsmouth as well as the Navy installations.

Presumably these ones had their tracking disabled and didn't show up on AIS, because otherwise it would be pretty easy to figure out where they come from.
Was hard to tell as the details on AIS were scant. Given the Queen's Harbourmaster guard vessel, I'd lean towards DSTL or Quinetiq on behalf of MOD
Southampton University have got an aerial drone that is used by Border Force for monitoring the channel

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