Why Autonomous Cargo?

Drones are popping up everywhere. Within the surface and subsurface domains, companies like Saildrone , Seasats , Leidos , and others are introducing drones for the #persistent #sensing mission, to augment #sea #power, and #small weapon systems, etc. Good missions. Need to go faster!

What I haven't seen yet is the #logistics #mission adequately covered. As an old loggie, it's not surprising. #logisticsgolast. Until you need logistics. Then #logisticsup! That's the cycle. But as a thought experiment, let's say logistics goes ... fourth. Here's the argument.

Proliferate and Decentralize.

Anyone seen a drone put a hole in the side of a large and expensive ship lately?

Large and expensive ships take a long time to build. Losing one can be catastrophic in terms of capability. Why not make 10,000 at 1/10,000th the cost? They can be smaller, but they have to be #cheap and they have to #endure the sea. They don't need to carry your priceless cargo. How about the logistics that people need?

Modern-Day Floating Dumps.

For low-pri but necessary supplies... and for the supplies we can't mix with people (#batteries #msds)... why mass them in one place or a few places? Why not have them persist, autonomously, until called upon? In the cost-wise calculus, let's make an adversary use more inventory on the stuff we don't particularly care about. Let's put the adversary in the decision space: if I don't disrupt this, they'll be resupplied, but if I do disrupt this, I'll deplete my weapons.

Net-Zero. Gas Runs Out.

The day of the sail can come back, but only for stuff en masse. There isn't a traffic jam on the high seas. Sure it's slow, but the wind is renewable. It may run out, but not forever. Fossil fuels are great and combusting it make things go fast. But it runs out. Batteries run out (big ones that is, those out-scaled by their solar chargers if equipped). Hydrogen isn't here yet. It may be soon. Sail has been here for centuries. I do have a side agenda: I want one of these things to play with. Sit in the back and have a cold snack while it smartly sails at my local lake. I admit it. But I digress.

I didn't even mention that there are carbon emission benefits to this plan.

Multi-Hull. Up to the Beach.

Most autonomous prototypes have deep keels. It's a good design decision when trying to stay upright. But multi-hull can carry a lot. And it can get closer to a beach. Now, admittedly, there is some design rub here. #1 The seas are unforgiving. #2 Cargo typically goes where the sail should be. It needs to be noodled through. But we can mitigate risk. Given a small link to the #NWS we can autonomously navigate away from danger. And the whole point is to have enough to be attritable. No it's not a word. But it kind of sort of is if you're military. It means that it's okay to subject this fleet to attrition.

Autonomous. 'There aint no strings on me'.

Connections can be severed and subverted. What if these many midsize craft had an identify friend or foe (IFF) mechanism, and didn't really need connection? Just a trickle here. Or a burst of communication there (like an order request). If GPS went down, could celestial navigation be viable? They'd be so slow they would definitely see the night sky in areas where there is not much light pollution. Autonomy is hard. Two years of part-time tinkering, mostly observing, is teaching me that.

Conclusion

I welcome feedback, criticism, shares, partners, friends, and connections. Shout out to David Trevas Eric Morgan Eric Hahn Greg Lewis Christopher Cichy Clifford D. Chen Don Saechang Jericho Macabante Yong-Sung Masuda Jesse Kemp Matt Seay Nicholas Whiteley Nicholas Farmer Brandon Smart

Closing thoughts:

• With no big-r, 'requirement', we'll never find out what is really possible.
• Logistics needs to be first. Saying that although it likely never will be. But we'll be late to need when the time comes.
• Got a better idea? Pair these boats to small UAVs, send them on the offensive. Ok. I'm game.