MCSpl3 Rebekah M. Rinckey
One of the most important but generally overlooked missions of the U.S. Navy is port security. While incidents in peacetime are generally rare, the 2000 terrorist attack on the destroyer USS Cole remains a real danger. Now the Navy is experimenting with using one of its newest unmanned boats as a way to protect warships sitting pierside from attack.
Since the attack on the Cole, the Navy has gotten a lot more serious about port security. Now the service is testing the Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV) as an unmanned, autonomous sentry capable of protecting much bigger ships from interlopers. The service is testing CUSV at Norfolk Naval Base, where it simulated patrolling near the guided-missile destroyer Arleigh Burke and the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis.
CUSV is a small, unmanned boat developed by Textron Systems. CUSV is also modular and can be adapted to many different roles. For the harbor security role, the Navy added electro-optical cameras, loudspeakers, and a remote-controlled .50-caliber machine gun. While CUSV has the ability to conduct many tasks autonomously, such as patrolling a set geographic area, only a human monitoring the situation remotely can fire the weapon.
Anyone out there who DOESN’T know any geeks/gamers/hackers who’d love to play with this [guaranteed to be] overpriced toy?
Eideard 
“In Madison Square Garden, at the Electrical Exhibition of 1898, Nikola Tesla staged a scientific tour de force, a demonstration completely beyond the generally accepted limits of technology. His invention, covered in patent No. 613,809 (1898), took the form of a radio-controlled boat, a heavy, low-lying, steel craft about four feet long. Inasmuch as radio hadn’t been officially patented yet (Tesla’s basic radio patent was filed in September 1897, but granted in March 1900), examiners from the US Patent Office were reluctant to recognize improbable claims made in the application “Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vessels or Vehicles.” Confronted with a working model, however, examiners quickly issued approval. https://www.pbs.org/tesla/ins/lab_remotec.html
Remote control patent 613,809: https://www.pbs.org/tesla/res/613809.html
U.S.-based subsea exploration firm Ocean Infinity is launching a new company that will operate a fleet of unmanned vessels that promise to break new ground in offshore data acquisition.
The new company, called Armada, is touted as a new pioneering marine technology and data company with a focus on combining technology and sustainability.
The company will initially operate a fleet of fifteen custom-designed “unmanned surface robots” to complement Ocean Infinity’s current fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles.
“Each unmanned surface robot will serve a wide range of industries by being fully equipped to perform a multiplicity of offshore data acquisition and intervention operations down to a depth of 6,000 meters,” Ocean Infinity said in a press release. “These robot ships will be capable of remotely deploying a wide range of the latest sensors as well as AUVs and ROVs for visual and acoustic data acquisition.”
Each of the unmanned vessels will be controlled and operated via satellite by a person onshore at facilities in Austin, Texas and Southampton, UK. https://gcaptain.com/ocean-infinity-launches-unmanned-vessel-company/
Re: Ocean Infinity see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Infinity#Missions