A Frazer-Nash project has been awarded a share of £1 million government funding, as part of the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) ‘Intelligent Ship – The Next Generation’ competition.
Frazer-Nash will be working with data science experts, Decision Lab, and survivability and lethality assessment consultancy, Survivability Consulting, to discover how artificial intelligence (AI) and automation can help reduce the ‘information overload’ faced by crews on defence platforms, and can support the armed forces in their essential day-to-day work.
Outlining the work Frazer-Nash, Decision Lab and Survivability will be undertaking, Frazer-Nash Business Manager, Neil Hunt, said:
“Our project focuses on optimising damage control and firefighting strategies on warships. Recovering the capabilities of a damaged ship during operations makes for a highly complex and challenging environment. Crews have to speedily assess the situation and coordinate the assets that are available to protect people and bring systems back online.
“By using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, huge amounts of data on the ship’s systems can be gathered and analysed much more quickly than would be possible by humans. Based on this analysis, appropriate strategies will be identified and specific actions recommended, allowing crew or command personnel to select the optimal course of action.
“Through demonstrating AI technologies in a simulated environment, learning outcomes can also be fed back into ship design and specification. For example, by identifying the types of data that need to be collected to inform decision-making, a recommendation could be made to install additional types of sensor.”
