EXCLUSIVE: Royal Navy trials robot spy boats that can scour the seas for up to 12 hours at a time

A drone boat which can patrol the English Channel and track migrants on 12-hour missions is being trialled for Special Forces during a massive robot war games exercise. Yesterday it took part in the Royal Navy's robotic Unmanned Warrior exercise, the biggest ever war game using more than 50 types of drones off the UK coast. The inflatable P950 boat - of which a manned version is already in service and is used by elite troops - can be driven both manually by a remote control and also in an autonomous mode. Using a remote control with a joystick, troops on a ships miles away or on land can tell it where to go and have a live 360 degree angle of what the boat sees. Or they can put it in autonomous mode and just give the boat a destination, and the boat will navigate itself avoiding any obstacles it comes into contact with. In the future it could be equipped with weaponry to help with mine-hunting.