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Chinese, US scientists develop AI technology to help detect submarines in uncharted waters

  • Researchers say system should allow them to track any sound-emitting source – from nuclear subs to whales – using a simple listening device mounted on a buoy, underwater drone or ship
  • Breakthrough builds on previous work by team from Beijing and San Diego

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A new AI system developed by Chinese and US scientists could make detecting nuclear submarines possible even in unknown waters. Photo: Xinhua
Stephen Chenin Beijing
Scientists from China and the United States have developed a new artificial intelligence-based system that they say will make it easier to detect submarines in uncharted waters.
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The technology builds on earlier work by the team, led by Dr Niu Haiqiang from the Institute of Acoustics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, which saw them develop a deep-learning algorithm that could improve the speed and precision of detection.

The algorithm, however, needs a large amount of data to work, so its use is limited to waters that have already been fully charted. In contrast, the upgrade works in all waters, charted or otherwise.

Even killer whales will be unable to hide from the new technology. Photo: Reuters
Even killer whales will be unable to hide from the new technology. Photo: Reuters

Niu and his colleagues, who included scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, started by developing a simulator to generate a wide range of virtual environments from which the algorithm was able to learn.

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Once it had assimilated that information, the simulator was able to analyse real-life data taken from the world’s oceans and seas, the team said in a paper published in the July issue of The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

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