One of the Navy’s first AI projects, the autonomous submersible, will be delivered by BAE Systems and Envitia

The Royal Navy’s Route Survey and Tasking Analysis (RSTA) project aims to deliver an automated capability for detecting and rendering harmless underwater mines in UK waters by 2022. Currently, a fleet of mine-hunter ships use sonar to detect anomalies on the seabed, but the AI-enabled submersibles to be developed by BAE Systems Applied Intelligence and British geospatial data company Envitia are expected to work in a fleet to scan objects, identify threats and make decisions about what action to take much faster.