Western Joint Branch Presentation: "The Balance of Survivability for Medium and Large Uncrewed Surface Vessels"

Please see the below for information on your next Western Joint Branch Presentation:

Technical Lecture Topic: The Balance of Survivability for Medium and Large Uncrewed Surface Vessels

Presented by: Dan Patten (BMT) & Mike Williams (BMT)

Date: Monday, 9th of February 2026

Time: Refreshments at 18:15, Lecture starts at 18:45

Venue: University of the West of England, Lecture Theatre 1N05, Building N, BS16 1QY, (and online).

Organiser: Western Joint Branch RINA/IMarEST

About the Talk: Naval forces are undergoing a significant transformation as fleets transition from predominantly crewed vessels to hybrid task groups that integrate autonomous and uncrewed systems. This shift has the potential to be as profound as the transition from battleships to aircraft carriers in the 1940s.This talk will outline the strategic and technological background driving this change and examine the key challenges associated with adopting hybrid modes of operation. It will then focus specifically on the evolving landscape of survivability for uncrewed vessels within these distributed systems. Traditional survivability assessments have centred on individual platforms, but this approach is likely to be insufficient when considering a hybrid task group. In a hybrid distributed architecture, survivability must be evaluated at the system level, recognising the new opportunities and difficulties introduced by autonomous assets.

About the Presenters:

Daniel Patten CEng MRINA is a Principal Naval Architect at BMT and has specialised in Survivability for 12 years. He has previously worked at the Ministry of Defence working with the Naval Authority Group and has latterly worked alongside Babcock and Navantia UK delivering the Type 31 Frigate and Fleet Solid Support projects respectively. His current focus is on integrated survivability of autonomous and hybrid systems.

Mike Williams has been the operability lead for BMT's Naval Architecture capability for the last 4 years. Prior to joining BMT he was a Warfare Officer in the Royal Navy, specialising in maritime air warfare. He has been involved with various programmes including alternative methods of navigation and uncrewed surface vessels. For the last 2 years his primary focus has been the RN's Future Air Dominance System (FADS) and the Hybrid Navy concept.

Registration: We will be running this as a Hybrid Event - Click Here to Register.

CPD Certificates will be sent to the email address used to register.