Following on from its successful input into the UK Defence and Security Accelerator’s (DASA’s) Intelligent Ship Phase 1 programme, Frazer-Nash Consultancy has been awarded a place on Phase 2 of the programme.
Phase 2 will see continued development of the IBIS (Internal Battle Intelligence Software) damage control decision aid, and experimentation with the tool in a highly collaborative, simulated environment.
IBIS uses artificial intelligence to process data from multiple information sources and reduces the ‘information overload’ faced by decision-makers during damage control and firefighting, helping to optimise the ship’s resilience and recoverability strategies. In Phase 2, Frazer-Nash will further explore the application of novel reinforcement learning techniques, while collaborating with the Intelligent Ship’s other ‘agents for decision-making’ (ADeMs) to further understand how a network of AI-enabled decision-making agents would work alongside humans at sea.
Frazer-Nash Naval Business Manager, Neil Hunt, said:
“In damage control and fire-fighting (DCFF), the ship’s company have to make complex decisions in a fast-paced environment, often with only limited information. An intelligent DCFF control system can offer a number of benefits, helping decision makers to gain situational awareness and make more timely decisions to restore capability more efficiently.
“Building on our portfolio of survivability related work, at Frazer-Nash we’ve once again teamed with Survivability Consulting Ltd (SCL) to further develop our predictive damage control tool. The tool aims to answer three questions relating to damage sustained in any given area of the ship: how will it affect survivability?; how will it impact operability?; and what is the best strategy to use to repair this damage? The tool will also consider if any pre-emptive actions can be undertaken to minimise damage, protect critical systems, or pre-harden the ship against damage.
“We’re excited to be part of this novel and highly collaborative programme which will see us work closely with Dstl, the UK Navy Command’s NELSON programme and a host of industry and academic contributors.”
About the Intelligent Ship competition
- The UK Defence & Security Accelerator’s (DASA’s) Intelligent Ship competition is looking for novel and innovative approaches and technologies that use artificial intelligence to revolutionise military decision-making, mission planning and automation. The project aims to demonstrate the methods and benefits of bringing multiple AI applications together to make collective decisions, both with and without human operator judgement. Phase 1 of the competition, which began in July 2019, funded nine proposals.
- Phase 2 of DASA’s Intelligent Ship programme is seeking projects that support the evaluation and demonstration of a range of human-machine teams, or Agents for Decision-Making (ADeMs), and their integration with an evaluation environment (the Intelligent Ship Artificial Intelligence Network (ISAIN)).
