--- title: Watch a Swarm of Drone Boats Protect a Larger Vessel description: The Navy tests a new way to protect ships. canonical: https://time.com/3475261/watch-a-swarm-of-drone-boats-protect-a-larger-vessel/ author: Ryan Sager article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-09T15:50:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:36:40.201Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Watch a Swarm of Drone Boats Protect a Larger Vessel og:description: The Navy tests a new way to protect ships. og:url: https://time.com/3475261/watch-a-swarm-of-drone-boats-protect-a-larger-vessel/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch a Swarm of Drone Boats Protect a Larger Vessel twitter:description: The Navy tests a new way to protect ships. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch a Swarm of Drone Boats Protect a Larger Vessel by [Ryan Sager](https://time.com/author/ryan-sager/) ## Ryan Sager Oct 9, 2014 3:50 PM UTC by [Ryan Sager](https://time.com/author/ryan-sager/) ## Ryan Sager Oct 9, 2014 3:50 PM UTC Here’s a unique solution to piracy… autonomous swarms of drone ships to “overwhelm” the enemy. According to the report from IEEE Spectrum, “The system not only steered the autonomous boats but also coordinated its actions with other vehicles—a larger group of manned and remotely-controlled vessels.” No humans were on the boats. (via [IEEE Spectrum](http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/us-navy-robot-boat-swarm)) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3475261/watch-a-swarm-of-drone-boats-protect-a-larger-vessel/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3475261/watch-a-swarm-of-drone-boats-protect-a-larger-vessel/"},"headline":"Watch a Swarm of Drone Boats Protect a Larger Vessel","datePublished":"2014-10-09T15:50:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:36:40.201Z","description":"The Navy tests a new way to protect ships","url":"https://time.com/3475261/watch-a-swarm-of-drone-boats-protect-a-larger-vessel/","keywords":["Innovation"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ryan Sager","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ryan-sager/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3475261/watch-a-swarm-of-drone-boats-protect-a-larger-vessel/","name":"Watch a Swarm of Drone Boats Protect a Larger Vessel"}}]}] ```