According to a tweet published by the Royal Navy on September 14, 2021, the Navy's experts (NavyX) have conducted autonomy experimentation with MADFOX USV alongside NATO and industry partners during REPMUS 2021 in Portugal.
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MADFOX USV (Picture source: Twitter account of Royal Navy)
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.
MAST-13 is similar to a water-borne drone. At 13 metres long, the boat manoeuvre around a naval task force, either autonomously or remotely controlled from a rig. It could be used to identify threats such as mines or collect intelligence on enemy ships, and then feed this information back to Navy ships.
NavyX is the Royal Navy’s new autonomy and lethality accelerator will look to overhaul and turbocharge the way the Navy buys the latest technology, streamlining the process and creating a brand-new facility where industry, military and academia can test, assess and purchase new equipment.
The development of NavyX combines the brightest military minds, civil servants, entrepreneurs and industry specialists.
