The world’s first fully autonomous warship aces sea trials
The US Navy's trials of their first autonomous warship platform have been wildly successful.
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Griffin, M. (2016) 'The world’s first fully autonomous warship aces sea trials', 311 Institute, 9 August. Available at: https://www.311institute.com/the-worlds-first-fully-autonomous-warship-passes-first-sea-trials/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
The US Navy's new unarmed Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) Sea Hunter has completed its first round of sea trials and it aced all of its tests for speed, manoeuvrability, stability, seakeeping, acceleration, deceleration, and fuel consumption, as well as mechanical systems reliability on the open sea.
Built by defence firm Leidos for a mere $20ml and co-sponsored by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the autonomous 132ft trimaran, which is designed to track potentially hostile submarines for months at a time without a crew, was launched earlier this year on April 9 at the Swan Island shipyard in Portland, Oregon.
While Sea Hunter had a pilot on board for the initial trials, and is currently equipped with a temporary pilot house the next trials, set to start next month will have no personnel on board letting Leidos and DARPA test the ships autonomous capabilities. When it's in service Sea Hunter will operate for around 70 days at sea without a crew and will leave and return to port on its own.
These first round of trials are the beginning of a two year long test program and the next phase of testing will concentrate more on the vessel's autonomous capabilities with a focus on sensors, the autonomy suite, the ability of the vessel to comply with maritime collision regulations, and what Leidos calls "proof of concept" demonstrations for a variety US Navy missions and from the results we're seeing so far it isn't too hard to see the Sea Hunter being just the first in a long line of autonomous warships. The only question we, and many others have, is when will they be armed and then, eventually, who will have control of those new weapons systems in the long run.
The world of warfare is changing and it's changing fast.
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The US Navy's trials of their first autonomous warship platform have been wildly successful.
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Matthew Griffin Founder, 311 Institute
Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath."
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Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.
An award-winning YouTube creator with over a million followers, with an unrivalled global reach and impact, Matthew is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker, lecturer, and mentor who collaborates with global leaders through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to shape pivotal initiatives such as the UN’s AI for Humanity program, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (UN COP), and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As the former Global Head of Cloud, National Security, and Enterprise Sales for companies including Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, Matthew has a proven track record of building multi-billion dollar business units and turning failing divisions into market leaders. His ability to identify, analyse, and communicate the implications of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends is unparalleled, and his insights are trusted by many of the world’s most respected organisations, including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi, Coca-Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Dow Jones, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, Siemens AG and Siemens Energy, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, Walmart, Workday, Worldpay and many others.
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Source: first published by the 311 Institute on 9 August 2016. Cite as: Griffin, M. (2016). The world’s first fully autonomous warship aces sea trials. 311 Institute. https://www.311institute.com/the-worlds-first-fully-autonomous-warship-passes-first-sea-trials/
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