AS THE UK debates spending billions to update its nuclear missile submarines, critics claim that underwater drones will soon blow their cover, making the project pointless. Are they right?
In recent years, marine research has been transformed by a new type of uncrewed submarine known as a glider. Typically looking like torpedoes with wings, they don鈥檛 have a propeller, instead altering buoyancy in order to glide. This slow, frugal propulsion on a single battery charge.
Gliders have been used for extended tracking of oil spills, pollution and fish. And they are near-silent, making them ideal for anti-submarine missions.
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鈥淪mall, cheap underwater drones could be deployed to form arrays covering a wide area鈥�
This would explain the proliferation of US navy glider projects, including the Persistent Littoral Undersea Surveillance system, the Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Glider and stealth-bomber shaped .
The Chinese are also interested. Their first glider was launched in 2011 and there are now dozens of projects, with a focus on speed, endurance and getting multiple gliders to work together. Chinese state media reports its has an .
Anti-submarine drones will benefit from rapid gains in computing power, since the search is all about signal processing. Whichever detection method the drone uses, the challenge is telling signal from noise. Drones have the advantage: they now pack more processing power than submarines of a few decades ago, thanks to Moore鈥檚 law. New sensor types, including lasers that can pierce seawater, are .
In addition, much US research focuses on multiple sensors networked in sparse arrays. Small, cheap drones could be deployed to form arrays covering a wide area. That鈥檚 great for whales, as low-power sensors are less damaging than high-powered sonar, but bad for submarines trying to hide.
Aerial drones have spread rapidly in military and civilian life. When the successor to the UK鈥檚 Trident nuclear submarine fleet is launched in 15 years or so, it would be surprising if the seas were not full of robots waiting to follow its every move.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭hat sinking feeling鈥�
