China also making large low-cost robotic submarine drones

China is developing large, smart and relatively low-cost unmanned submarines according to scientists involved in artificial intelligence (AI) projects. These robotic submarines are expected to be deployed in the early 2020s.

The AI-powered subs are expected to be vastly larger than existing torpedo sized robotic underwater drones.

Torpedos are about 12 feet (4 meters long). The new robotic drones will be 40 feet (13 meters) to 100 feet (32 meters) long. This will be about the size of PT boats or U-boats in WW2.

Lin Yang, marine technology equipment director at the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed that China is developing a series of extra-large unmanned underwater vehicles, or XLUUVs.

The institute, in China’s northeast Liaoning province, is a major producer of underwater robots to the Chinese military. Lin developed China’s first autonomous underwater vehicle with operational depth beyond 6km. He is now chief scientist of the 912 Project, a classified programme to develop new-generation military underwater robots by 2021.

The US has Lockheed Martin working on the Orca project to build large unmanned submarine drones.

Boeing has a 51 foot long robotic submarine called the Echo Voyager.

15 thoughts on “China also making large low-cost robotic submarine drones”

  1. Sigh. Another arms race. After the fall of the Soviet Union, I thought maybe we’d get a break longer than just a decade or two, but…

  2. Sigh. Another arms race. After the fall of the Soviet Union I thought maybe we’d get a break longer than just a decade or two but…

  3. It is already over for Naval warfare. Naval ships are already sitting ducks for hypersonic missiles, and ICBM’s The future is going to be a bunch of underwater drones fighting each other 5,000 under the sea powered by AI. The main weakness of the submarine was that the sub was slower than the surface ship, so thus needed to anticipate the path of the surface ship and strike when the surface ship passed over. They would need to provide oxygen, and food for a crew of 100+ the largest sub in the world only has enough food for 3 months. Mental health is also an issue. With all the crew members replaced by AI, subs can patrol even longer and be smaller and more hidden.

  4. It is already over for Naval warfare.Naval ships are already sitting ducks for hypersonic missiles and ICBM’sThe future is going to be a bunch of underwater drones fighting each other 5000 under the sea powered by AI. The main weakness of the submarine was that the sub was slower than the surface ship so thus needed to anticipate the path of the surface ship and strike when the surface ship passed over. They would need to provide oxygen and food for a crew of 100+ the largest sub in the world only has enough food for 3 months. Mental health is also an issue.With all the crew members replaced by AI subs can patrol even longer and be smaller and more hidden.

  5. I would like to thank you for supporting and growing America’s Military Industrial Complex. /s If America starts loosing expensive subs and aircraft carriers someone will be seeing a nuclear sunrise.

  6. I would like to thank you for supporting and growing America’s Military Industrial Complex. /sIf America starts loosing expensive subs and aircraft carriers someone will be seeing a nuclear sunrise.

  7. If the autonomous subs were filled with distilled water, or some other incompressible fluid during their missions, their maximum depth would be essentially unlimited. You’d want a liquid as light as possible, electrically nonconductive, and noncorrosive. A chlorofluorocarbon, or something similar might do nicely. Flammability would not be a problem during the mission. You might keep the liquid warm for increased buoyancy. You might use changing the temperature of the craft for buoyancy control, since conventional ballast tanks would limit dive depth. Using supercritical CO2 to displace water in “ballast tanks” by changing it’s temperature might be worth a try. You could float a nonpolar solvent, like paraffin on top of the water so that the CO2 would not go into solution, or you could isolate it with a membrane.

  8. If the autonomous subs were filled with distilled water or some other incompressible fluid during their missions their maximum depth would be essentially unlimited. You’d want a liquid as light as possible electrically nonconductive and noncorrosive. A chlorofluorocarbon or something similar might do nicely. Flammability would not be a problem during the mission. You might keep the liquid warm for increased buoyancy. You might use changing the temperature of the craft for buoyancy control since conventional ballast tanks would limit dive depth. Using supercritical CO2 to displace water in ballast tanks”” by changing it’s temperature might be worth a try. You could float a nonpolar solvent”” like paraffin on top of the water so that the CO2 would not go into solution”” or you could isolate it with a membrane.”””

  9. If the autonomous subs were filled with distilled water, or some other incompressible fluid during their missions, their maximum depth would be essentially unlimited. You’d want a liquid as light as possible, electrically nonconductive, and noncorrosive. A chlorofluorocarbon, or something similar might do nicely. Flammability would not be a problem during the mission.
    You might keep the liquid warm for increased buoyancy. You might use changing the temperature of the craft for buoyancy control, since conventional ballast tanks would limit dive depth. Using supercritical CO2 to displace water in “ballast tanks” by changing it’s temperature might be worth a try. You could float a nonpolar solvent, like paraffin on top of the water so that the CO2 would not go into solution, or you could isolate it with a membrane.

  10. I would like to thank you for supporting and growing America’s Military Industrial Complex. /s

    If America starts loosing expensive subs and aircraft carriers someone will be seeing a nuclear sunrise.

  11. It is already over for Naval warfare.

    Naval ships are already sitting ducks for hypersonic missiles, and ICBM’s

    The future is going to be a bunch of underwater drones fighting each other 5,000 under the sea powered by AI.

    The main weakness of the submarine was that the sub was slower than the surface ship, so thus needed to anticipate the path of the surface ship and strike when the surface ship passed over. They would need to provide oxygen, and food for a crew of 100+ the largest sub in the world only has enough food for 3 months. Mental health is also an issue.

    With all the crew members replaced by AI, subs can patrol even longer and be smaller and more hidden.

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