The Royal Navy has taken delivery of a new experimental test vessel that will allow sailors to experiment with cutting-edge technology such as robotic submarines and remote-controlled boats.
Named the XV Patrick Blackett, the Dutch-built vessel arrived at Portsmouth Naval Base this week for delivery to NavyX, the service’s research and development arm.
Tom Ryall, the Royal Marines colonel in charge of NavyX, said the new ship “will give us greater flexibility to experiment with new military capabilities and accelerate new front-line technologies, kits and concepts”.
The 270-ton Patrick Blackett is a civilian design that has been specially modified so that prototypes of new equipment can be quickly installed on the spacious deck where sailors can try them out.
Electrical and water connection points on deck will allow experienced personnel to quickly install and remove their specialist equipment without the vessel needing expensive modifications to the vessel each time a new item needs to be installed.
Trials of new naval equipment in recent years have relied on pulling a warship from front-line duties and modifying it as needed, affecting the fleet’s ability to patrol the world’s increasingly hostile oceans.
Navy sources expect the Patrick Blackett to be used to conduct trials of naval drones as part of future naval exercises. Such drones can be remotely controlled from a “mother ship” and float on the surface of the sea or even act as submarines.
Such technologies reduce the risks facing sailors and, admirals hope, mean a single ship can control a much larger area than a conventional warship.
Recent naval experiments with autonomous unmanned ships include the use of drones to transport supplies to ships at sea, as well as trials of a remotely operated speedboat made by BAE Systems and deployed by the frigate HMS Argyll.
The new Navy ship is named after a British physicist who was the Navy’s first head of operational research during World War II. Patrick Blackett won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948.
Unlike commissioned warships, the Patrick Blackett will fly the Blue Ensign – which means a government civilian ship – although it will be commanded by a naval officer and carry a naval crew of five. Her hull is also black instead of navy grey, bearing the new ship’s unique NATO flag number: X01.
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