‘REPMUS’ (‘Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Unmanned Systems’) is led by the Portuguese Navy. ‘Dynamic Messenger’ is NATO Allied Maritime Command’s (MARCOM’s) dedicated uncrewed systems operational experimentation exercise. The two are running in tandem for the second year.
The exercises enabled the RN to test the new ship and its new concept of operations. Beforehand, the navy planned the exploitation of its capabilities; during the exercises, the ship deployed various uncrewed assets, operated with other surface vessels, and tasked uncrewed air systems, the ship’s Commanding Officer (CO) said.
“Patrick Blackett was built as an autonomy, lethality, and innovation accelerator for the RN,” Commander Michael Hutchinson, who is ‘double hatted’ as ship CO and experimentation team leader for Navy X (the RN’s trials and experimentation unit), told Naval News in an interview onboard during ‘REPMUS’. “The idea is that we have a dedicated platform that we can experiment with, and that we can bring new technology into the fleet with at pace, to get it to the front line.”
Capacity to conduct testing work both in the ship and from the ship is enabled by the large, modular spaces onboard (including the aft deck) and the open C2 architecture.
“We’ve integrated into live operations with autonomous systems. That has been the success of this year.”
Commander Michael Hutchinson, CO and experimentation team leader for Navy X
Patrick Blackett integrated with different assets spread across the large exercise area, and was used for example to respond to a threat in a scenario by tasking different uncrewed systems to investigate, identify, and track the threat. Moreover, with the ship being lean-crewed, such tasking was conducted with minimal human input, Hutchinson added.
The ship embarked uncrewed underwater vehicles, anti-submarine warfare capabilities, command-and-control (C2) equipment, ‘mesh’ equipment to support C2 integration, and SATCOM systems. It also integrated into the RN’s Naval Strike Network (NSN) C2 infrastructure. As regards C2 infrastructure integration, “We are looking at how we are utilising technology to get systems working together as ‘systems of systems’,” said Hutchinson.
The ship’s presence was seen as a stepping stone for scaling up its engagement in the 2024 exercise, and to demonstrate how using a platform like Patrick Blackett can shape the ‘navy after next’, Hutchinson explained.
As regards progressing between the 2023 and 2024 exercises, Hutchinson said “We’ve already achieved what we wanted to achieve. Success now is making sure we make next year difficult enough, so that we can push the boundaries.” By 2024, Patrick Blackett will have completed a full year of experimentation work. “There’s a whole plan to develop and bring additional equipment to ensure we get the most out of the exercises,” the CO explained.
“Next year, we want to deploy our own organic autonomous systems from – if it’s possible – an autonomous ship. We know that’s a really ambitious target, and it might not work, and that’s OK. The important thing is setting it up to operate with the autonomous systems.”
Commander Michael Hutchinson, CO and experimentation team leader for Navy X
As regards the navy’s future shape and structure, Hutchinson said Navy X can assess how to build on what the ship achieved at the exercises in 2023 and develop its capabilities for 2024, for example adding sensors or increasing C2 disaggregation, to make it more representative of what a warship can do, and enabling it to increase outputs. “[Then], we can really see how a platform like this could integrate into something like a carrier strike group,” he said.
Here, given the geographic distance around a carrier that must be secured, autonomous platforms that could deploy and/or co-ordinate uncrewed systems in the air, on the surface, and below the surface could help provide coverage while freeing up crewed platforms for higher-end tasks. “It’s how you support those high-end warfighting assets with cheaper, cost-effective platforms that still offer a lot of military output,” Hutchinson said.
“You can really start to see how technology is changing the way military operations are conducted … and how we are leveraging that technology to change the face of what the military looks like,” he continued. With Patrick Blackett intended to be developed into an autonomous platform capable of navigating for itself and thinking for itself, while remaining as an autonomous technology test-bed, Hutchinson said “the ship is designed to do the autonomy work that needs to be done to free up the [human] workforce so that we can start to leverage the people for what we want them to do.” “Patrick Blackett is probably the physical embodiment of the digital transformation of the navy,” he concluded.
