Madfox is being used to examine how uncrewed vessels can be used across a range of military operations including surveillance and force protection.
The vessel is currently near Faslane naval base in the Clyde.
https://twitter.com/geoallison/status/1453317539090640905
The account @ArgyllSeaGlass also captured some video, I fully recommend following their account to see the comings and goings on the Clyde.
Madfox military ops boat on Loch Long in Argyll Scotland this morning @NavyLookout @UKDefJournal @MaryTaxi #MadFox #MilitaryOps #LochLong #Argyll #Scotland #MHHSBD pic.twitter.com/zNkiriWOno
— 🏴Mike – ArgyllSeaglass 🏴 (@ArgyllSeaGlass) October 27, 2021
The vessel is operated by ‘NavyX’, the Royal Navy’s experimentation group.
According to a Royal Navy news release from March when the vessel joined the fleet.
“Named Madfox (Maritime Demonstrator For Operational eXperimentation), it is derived from technology firm L3Harris’ Mast-13 vessel, which for the past 18 months has been operated by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) on a series of trials with the Royal Navy. Since being delivered, NavyX has been working hard to get Madfox to sea and ready to begin a demanding year of testing.”
Over the next few months, the Royal Navy say that NavyX will carry on its work with the Uncrewed Surface Vessel.
Commander Antony Crabb, NavyX team leader, was quoted as saying:
“With Madfox now directly in the hands of NavyX, the team will be able to explore a multitude of issues such as safety, regulatory compliance, new missions, new payloads and the role that a USV can play in complex operations and within the future fleet.”
What’s more, the vessel recently launched a missile during NATO’s biggest autonomous war games exercise, you can read more about that here.
Join the RN an play with model boats.
Lol… and what happens if it gets hit by a large wave and flips over?
Self righting small boats do exist…
Bang goes the electrics for starters even if the RHIB can self right all the taxpayers money on AI software won’t be worth it unless there using AMSTRAD or SPECTRUM ZX
Assume the vessel can be nominally manned when necessary / appropriate. Great to get this stuff out and tested early…technology moves so fast.
This drone with a robot fitted with an integral gravity pack coming to a boarding near you sometime soon !
Commander Crabb – any relation to Commander Buster Crabb per chance?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Crabb
SB do you mean Headless body in wet suit CRABB or Emperor Mings arch nemesis Flash Gordon Buster Crabb just a jest
And we’re not the only ones!
US 5th Fleet vessels operate USVs for the first time27 OCTOBER 2021
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/defence/latest/us-5th-fleet-vessels-operate-usvs-for-the-first-time
Someone’s going to run straight over that thing.
And then it will be shown on the BBC news doing the Channel dash with lots of Illegal immigrants playing with all the equipment 😆🤣
Talking of drones, the bbc has an article on the RRS Sir David Attenborough (which has some brilliant inaccuracies) but it’s got pictures of It’s sub surface drones that have been called boaty Mcboatface. Love it.
Clearly there is a lot of work being done with this craft. Interesting that safety was the first thing mentioned by Commander Crabb in his quote. A boat that size isn’t going to present a huge threat to other vessels so a relatively low risk way to test the technology in a range of hazard simulating scenarios in the real world before migrating to a larger heavier platform. This demonstrates a sensible appraoch to risk management whilst still getting a lot of data and information that will be directly applicable to future developments. The interesting bits to most of us… Read more »