Unmanned maritime surveillance and weapons systems

The rapid evolution of military robotic technology evident today has seen the emergence and growing acceptance of unmanned vehicles (UVs) across all three operating environments, air, land and sea. This has been due to the fact that UVs have consistently demonstrated their worth across a wide spectrum of current military operations and campaigns. Developed primarily because of their strong intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, lower unit costs and reduced risk to the operator, the development of UVs has continued at an unprecedented pace. Not only can they be used for ISR missions, but they can also be used to provide the delivery of effective firepower as unmanned weapons systems (UWS), and they have grown smaller, faster and more sophisticated with each passing year.