Page 164 - Australian Defence Magazine October 2019

FROM THE SOURCE
REAR ADMIRAL PETER QUINN
Continued from page 162
navies, like mine, are going to have to look at and will likely consider embrac- ing over the next decade.
ADM: So you’re essentially waiting for them to mature slightly?
QUINN: We’re not waiting in all areas. We’re already introducing some systems into service, investing in some other tech- nologies, and we’re collaborating with friends and partners in other areas. There is a lot of work going on in a lot of different areas, but right now we’re introducing our first crop of autonomous systems for hy- drography, mine warfare and ISR and as we do so we will transition to operating more in a man-machine teaming environment and as we move forward we will introduce additional technologies into service.
Navy co-sponsored with the Defence Science and Technology Group the Au- tonomous Warrior exercise held in Jervis Bay in November last year. That was a great opportunity to work with industry on the latest technologies and we had many com- panies come along to demonstrate their ca- pabilities, including many Australian ones.
We also had all of the Five Eyes partners represented, we had other friends and part- ners there as well and there was a broad range of technologies that we worked with, interacted with and integrated together as part of that exercise. Indeed, the exercise achieved a number of firsts for capability,
particularly the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) to control large numbers of differing systems and coordinate the ef- fects of those systems.
We’re involved in all of those things and investing in them. We’re doing a lot of work through the Innovation Hub and the Next Generation Technology Fund to partner with industry and academia. Our first big steps though, as I’ve outlined, are going to be in mine warfare and hydrog- raphy and in introducing the unmanned aerial systems. But there’ll be a lot more to come after that.
ADM: You touched on AI. What is the role that you see for AI in a very broad Navy capability context? Obviously in unmanned systems it’s quite relevant but is it relevant elsewhere?
QUINN: Oh boy, where do I start?! The number of AI applications you have on your phone now without you actually even knowing it is quite amazing. There’s AI that helps you make choices now when you use Google, and certainly if you’re a Face- book user you use AI all the time whether you realise it or not.
In the Navy context, we’ll absolutely use AI in remote and autonomous systems but also more broadly in other applications. I would contend modern maritime warfare, particularly when you’re in the littorals, is becoming extremely complex and is con- ducted in an increasingly very congested environment. There are large numbers of
EX Talisman Sabre was a great opportunity to exercise a range of capabilities offered by the LHDs
platforms and systems in space, in the sky, on the water and underneath the surface and the electromagnetic and cyber environ- ments are becoming exponentially more complex, congested and contested. With all of those things going on simultaneously, humans need machines to help them.
This is not a new thing for Navy. We’ve used very complex machines for many, many years to understand the environ- ment. For example, Aegis is a machine that fuses the inputs from many sen- sors and information repositories from both within our ships and from external sources – Aegis helps us to understand what’s happening in a complex tactical environment and provides recommenda- tions and/or automated responses. Our Australian Saab Combat System and our Collins Class Combat System do the same sort of things, it’s how Navies fight.
We already use advanced algorithms to automate functions like missile defence at sea. As the pace of things continues to speed up we will rely more and more on these machines and their increasingly complex algorithms, trained by machine learning systems, to enable us to under- stand what’s going on, to sift through the massive amounts of data in real time and present us the information and options in such a way that we can make sound, ethi- cal decisions in very complex high tempo environments.
ADM: What excites you about the next 3-5 years?
QUINN: For me I think it’s Navy really moving forward and embracing remote and autonomous systems. That’s going to be a big cultural change for Navy, but it’s really exciting where we’re heading in that manned/unmanned/human teaming space and it really will take our Navy ca- pabilities to a different level where we’ll be able to do a range of roles and tasks where we haven’t had many options in the past.
More broadly I’ll be really excited to see us starting the prototyping work for the Hunters, commencing work on the first ship and in parallel finalising the Attack Class design and getting that build un- derway. Well also be commissioning the first of the OPVs in a couple of years, so it’s really a very exciting time for Navy and ADF overall. And, of course, the new capabilities aren’t just exciting, there’re needed, because we’ve got some pretty challenging strategic circumstances de- veloping in our region.
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