Marine

China launches an autonomous mothership full of autonomous drones

China launches an autonomous mothership full of autonomous drones
The Zhu Hai Yun is designed to carry and co-ordinate its own integrated autonomous research and surveillance fleet, with more than 50 autonomous aircraft, boats and submersibles capable of working in concert
The Zhu Hai Yun is designed to carry and co-ordinate its own integrated autonomous research and surveillance fleet, with more than 50 autonomous aircraft, boats and submersibles capable of working in concert
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The Zhu Hai Yun is designed to carry and co-ordinate its own integrated autonomous research and surveillance fleet, with more than 50 autonomous aircraft, boats and submersibles capable of working in concert
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The Zhu Hai Yun is designed to carry and co-ordinate its own integrated autonomous research and surveillance fleet, with more than 50 autonomous aircraft, boats and submersibles capable of working in concert

China christened a remarkable new 290-foot (88-m) 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.

China doesn't expect it to navigate busy seaports by itself, like the Japanese autonomous container ship Suzaku we wrote about last week. Instead, the 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.

"The Intelligent, unmanned ship is a beautiful new 'marine species' that will bring revolutionary changes for ocean observation," said Professor Dake Chen of the Chinese Academy of Science's School of Oceanography.

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, including the extraordinary spider-legged WAM-V boats we looked into on Friday.

Check out a short video below.

China’s world-first drone-carrier capable of operating on its own

Source: Huangpu Wenchong Shipyard via South China Morning Post

8 comments
8 comments
Rustgecko
"While it's mainly pitched as an ocean research platform, the SCMP also reports that it has military capability".

The truth? It's a military project which could be used for marine research or at sell that story to the West, in the same way the artificial islands near the Philippines, were promised would never be militarised.
paul314
As a military project it reduces risk (for China) and increases plausible deniability, because there won't be anyone aboard to be held responsible (or to be injured/killed if the ship is attacked). I do wonder who does the maintenance, which is generally a bunch of fulltime jobs on crewed ships.
riczero-b
I cannot see this complex large ship being affordable for most research. It would make a good mine sweeper.
CorJac
This is clearly an innocent front for the actual military advantage it represents. We see the value of it in the use of drones in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The cost of running these unmanned but remotely controlled "tools" is a fraction of the manned equipment, and no emotion or thought whatsoever.
We need to abandon our nativity, and recognize the real drivers behind these projects.
RangerJones
Powered by? Would be kind of an important part. All those drones refueled by? Made in china
ash
"made in china" as an insult? look at your i-phone
ljaques
After seeing the videos from Ukraine of the drones dropping grenades on the Russian invaders lends more importance to the existence of this ship.
Well, at least we'll finally gain a use of our lagging littoral ship group now. Easy conversion.
Adrian Akau
Ji is not concerned so much with research as he is with attacking Taiwan.