Large Unmanned Ship
China started to build the country’s most advanced large unmanned ship, the vessel’s manufacturer announced on 02 June 2022. Led by the No.716 Research Institute of China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited (CSSC), the large unmanned ship project had a ceremony to celebrate the start of its construction. This meant that the ship, being the most advanced among its kind in China, has officially entered the construction phase, the institute said.
Featuring a "high-speed hydrofoil trimaran" design, the drone ship is characterized by its high speed, long endurance and fully domestically developed propulsion system, in addition it can independently carry out missions under different scenarios, the press release said.
No details were given, including information about the designation, the exact size or the types of missions for which the ship will be employed. The CSSC No.716 Research Institute is an organization that contributes to national defense and public service with electronic equipment and technology, according to the institute.
The details are unknown because there is only one photo of the information, but it is designed as if the US Navy's Zumwalt-class destroyer and Independence-class littoral combat ship were added and split, making it a Chinese ship. It's a smart impression. In particular, it is often pointed out that China is "leading ahead of the United States" due to unmanned technology at sea and underwater, but the large stealth unmanned ships that have begun to be built are Sea Hunter and USV experimentally built by the US Navy.
An unmanned ship is a fully automatic surface robot that can navigate on the water surface according to preset tasks with the help of precise satellite positioning and self-sensing without remote control. Today, many countries have begun to develop unmanned ships. Some shipping giants even optimistically predict that in just a few decades, the mature "ghost ship" technology will rewrite the face of global ocean shipping. There are few technical difficulties in developing unmanned ships, and there are many ships with automated equipment. The arrival of the era of unmanned ships is considered to be only a matter of time.
Unmanned ships have the advantages of small size, high speed, low cost and no risk of casualties. They can perform tasks in dangerous areas or areas that are not suitable for dispatching manned ships, expand the scope of water operations of ships, and have high cost and efficiency. Therefore, it has become an important platform for performing search and rescue, reconnaissance, monitoring, archaeology, fire strike, ship escort, anti-mine and anti-submarine missions.
Research on Unmanned Surface Vhicles (USV) dates back to World War II (1939-1945), with semi-autonomous remote control surface platform to be used in military missions. Related projects did not start to appear in large numbers until the 1990s. In the US, "Spartan Scout" can complete military reconnaissance, intelligence tasks such as collection and transmission. Israel developed "Protector" surface high-speed autonomous unmanned ship. The "Argent" with adaptive capabilities and "Marlin" unmanned ship pushed the development of unmanned ships to a new level.
On December 15, 2019, the first domestic self-developed cargo ship "Jindouyun 0" with autonomous navigation function successfully achieved autonomous navigation for carrying goods on Dong'ao Island in Zhuhai, opening the exploration and practice of autonomous navigation.
On September 14, 2021, China's first commercial cargo ship "Zhi Fei" with intelligent navigation capability successfully carried out sea tests in Qingdao. The ship is 117.15 meters long, 17.32 meters wide and 9.9 meters deep, and can carry 310TEU. It is the world's largest intelligent ship currently under construction. The ship has three driving modes: manual driving, remote control driving and unmanned autonomous navigation, and can realize functions such as intelligent perception and cognition of the navigation environment, autonomous route planning, intelligent collision avoidance, automatic berthing and departure, and remote control driving.
The "Navigator" marine high-speed unmanned ship independently developed in China is a "surface intelligent robot" that integrates a variety of high-tech and can be widely used in environmental monitoring, search and rescue, security patrol and other fields. According to reports, this "surface intelligent robot" integrates technologies such as ships, communications, automation, robot control, remote monitoring, and networked systems to achieve autonomous navigation, intelligent obstacle avoidance, long-distance communication, real-time video transmission and networked monitoring and other functions. Previously, this technology was only in the hands of a few countries such as the United States and Israel.
In present times, naval forces must be prepared against a wide range of technological and primitive naval threats. There is a growing need for effective fleet protection in the age of high-tech weapons, especially in narrow seas, such as the Taiwan Strait, among others. Multi-hull sailboats have been in use worldwide for centuries. Multi-hull sailboats include sailboats with two hulls which are now referred to as catamarans and sailboats with three hulls which are now referred to as trimarans. Trimarans typically comprise a main hull and two side floats or pontoons positioned one on each side of, and a distance from, the main hull to improve the stability of the boat.
As a watercraft gathers speed, its drag increases dramatically. An efficient way to diminish the drag is to use the hydrofoils which generate, at sufficient speeds, a hydrodynamic lifting capacity and lift a hull clear of the water. At such high speeds, the drag of hydrofoils is a number of times lower in comparison with the drag of a floating hull.
The use of hydrofoils is also very efficient in increasing the speed of windpowered watercraft. Modern windpowered multihulls, particularly the trimarans, are sufficiently high-speeded and light to be lifted, due to hydrodynamic lift, completely or partially clear of the water, and thereby, the drag is essentially diminished. A specific requirement regarding the windpowered watercraft is to provide the required stability, because the total force of a wind, as well as its direction and magnitude can vary in a wide range. Such a hydrofoil system should not increase substantially the costs of a boat and cause additional inconvenience in operating. Existing hydrofoil systems meet these requirements only partially, therefore their use is still limited.
The theory of balancing the weight of a vessel by a hydrodynamic lift effect produced by the speed of the water acting on submerged, semi-submerged or surface-piercing aerofoil shape members, as opposed to use of only the Archimedian upthrust effect due to the submerged volumes, goes back a long way and powered vessels fitted with this type of device date from the beginning of the twentieth century. V-shape arrangement of surface-piercing foils was very widely used on first generation hydrofoils and has the drawback that the foils tend to follow undulations of the swell, which makes a vessel of this kind uncomfortable for passengers. What is more, once the swell height exceeds 1.5 m it is necessary to reduce the speed of the hydrofoil very substantially.
The second generation hydrofoils have simple, variable angle of incidence, totally submerged foils controlled automatically according to the speed, the trim and the height of the vessel above the water, a control system sending the necessary corrections to the foils. The second generation powered hydrofoils were introduced during the 1960s and have mainly been used in military applications. The design of these hydrofoils is inherently unstable, stability being achieved only dynamically by means of a dedicated control system.
The Large Unmanned Ship [LUS] is a naval vessel that could assist in providing an effective defense against surface ships, submarines, and aerial weapon platforms, i.e. anti-ship missiles. The LUS provides fleet protection outside of current naval defense perimeters. The LUS could engage enemy forces well beyond the fleet's area of operation, thereby seriously depleting enemy forces effectiveness and strength long before they are able to effectively engage the fleet. The LUS could also be an effective element to Rapid Force Deployment Operations. The LUS could provide close to shore insertion and extraction operations in support of Navy SEAL teams, in addition to blue water operations.
The ship houses electronics, missile weapon systems, CWISP close in defense system, and various other elements. Additionally, the ship could be used for rapid deployment for naval personnel and rescue. The LUS is ideal for detecting and destroying submarine threats. The LUS could also aid in smuggler interdiction operations. Its presence would be a strong deterrence to drug smugglers and any other types of smuggling operations. Search and rescue operations could also be performed by the LUS, saving lives during naval blue water operations and coastal operations. Depending on the configuration of the superstructure, another embodiment of the LUS could be capable of launching aircraft/projectiles such as: vertical takeoff aircraft, cruise missiles, and or various types of helicopters. In addition, the LUS could be reconfigured for various roles.
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