Project CABOT – the Royal Navy’s planned Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) barrier in the North Atlantic – isn’t simply about detecting and tracking submarines; it’s about total situational awareness, from space to seabed, across a vast, opaque operating environment.

It’s a monumental challenge as much as it is a tremendous opportunity – one that will test the Navy and push the ingenuity of industry to new heights.

Continuous capability evolution at revolutionary speed

Earlier this year, the Royal Navy outlined its plans to commission a persistent barrier in the North Atlantic to hunt out hostile actors trying to enter allied waters.  Known as “Project CABOT”, this would be comprised of networked uncrewed vehicles (UVs) equipped with advanced sensor systems capable of both active and passive sonar deployment. This barrier promises to be transformative in its ultimate strategic value and revolutionary in terms of the pace at which the Navy wants it to be developed.

Yet Project CABOT will need to be delivered and deployed in a fundamentally evolutionary fashion. Technological leaps can be astonishingly swift if you’re happy to ‘move fast and break things.’ The Navy, of course, can’t afford to do this – its ASW capability needs to be continuous if it’s to be effective. This is why delivery of CABOT will require scaling existing systems and processes, as well as seamlessly integrating newly uncrewed with lean-crewed assets.

Six key development areas crucial to CABOT’s success

Project CABOT presents several key opportunities for industry to contribute innovative solutions. With opportunity comes challenge, of course, and Thales has learned from long experience that we must address the most consequential of these, not in series, but in parallel. 

This means we need to look at the sensing capability of the proposed system-of-systems as a whole. There seem to me to be six key development areas:

First, advancing long-range underwater communication and secure data transfer to enable seamless information flow and enhance the overall effectiveness of the ASW barrier. Realising this will require robust, reliable, and secure supporting infrastructure.

Second, successfully managing a wide range of environmental factors will ensure the ongoing effectiveness of the ASW barrier, since acoustic conditions in the ocean vary widely due to varying temperatures, salinity, currents, and the unique topography of the operating area. And while we bear in mind the impact of the environment on the barrier’s operation, we must simultaneously minimise the barrier’s impact on the environment.

Third, achieving extended operational endurance of UVs is a critical requirement for sustained effectiveness. Most existing UVs can only stay on task for a few days. Real-world deployments will typically be far longer. Solutions that prioritise reliability, robustness, and longevity over the very-latest technology may often be better.

Fourth, the Navy needs to reuse and retool existing assets wherever possible. However, this isn’t a simple matter of installing an autonomous captain to previously crewed vessels. If any small, seemingly inconsequential part of an autonomous system’s deployment, maintenance and/or operation has been originally designed with a human in the loop (e.g. a grease nipple designed to be maintained by a crew member), the vessel’s autonomy – and therefore its effectiveness – is fundamentally compromised.

The devil’s in the data

Addressing these four development areas may turn out to be the easy part because the fifth issue that we need to consider within the system-wide context is that of data transfer and storage. Naval systems already generate colossal amounts of data. Industry partners will need to address this challenge as part of Project CABOT.

Finally, realising the potential of data fusion, processing and exploitation is paramount (and perhaps the most difficult challenge of all). Not only will data proliferate as CABOT is delivered, it will also diversify. New sensors will produce more types of data, at different speeds, at different times, and in different formats. If all this data is to be turned into actionable insights, it’s going to need to be synthesised swiftly and effectively, using tools and techniques that have yet to be battle tested.

This challenge is inseparable from the question of where to process all this data in a way that balances security with operational effectiveness. On shore? At the edge? There’s no “right” answer – it’s a question of judgement as much as technical expertise.

Technological transformation demands cultural adaptation

Naval Command understands, just as Thales does, that technical challenges are often the tip of the iceberg.

Roles and responsibilities across the service will inevitably change as CABOT gets underway, as technologies advance and the threat evolves. Many crews and individuals will need to do things differently; others will need to learn how to do different things. This brings with it new opportunities for growth, development and enhanced operational capabilities.

Not only will new tactics, techniques and procedures need to be developed and implemented, there will be a considerable training burden associated with CABOT if service personnel are to learn to operate and trust new automated and autonomous systems. All too often, technologists become so focused on relieving one set of cognitive burdens that they forget that new technologies and workflows – however intuitive – risk introducing others. If the Navy’s new ASW barrier is to disrupt the adversary more than the Royal Navy, it’s crucial that industry partners keep this issue front of mind.

Rising to meet the challenge

With Project CABOT, the Royal Navy has presented industry with something it has long sought: the chance to solve identified problems rather than to deliver already-specified solutions. It’s a remarkable opportunity and an exciting prospect. After all, companies like Thales are full of highly motivated, highly experienced experts who relish the opportunity to address these challenges.

Project CABOT should also be a daunting prospect to any organisation thinking of taking up the challenge. Where you’re no longer merely responsible for delivering against defined requirements, you’re accountable for delivering the operational outcomes.

For Project CABOT to succeed it requires industry partners to rise above the role of suppliers and actively ensure its success as strategic allies to the Navy. Technical expertise will be worth little without a correspondingly deep understanding of the Navy’s operational imperatives. And neither of these things will be enough without the willingness to do the hard yards and embrace the challenges to ensure the project’s success. As the saying goes, a ship is safe in the harbour, but that’s not what ships are built for.