Confidence in Situational Awareness for MASS: Building the Future Testing Capability in the UK to Support a Thriving Maritime Autonomy Sector

NPL , in partnership with the Ministry of Defence, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, the Met Office, Team Plymouth and the University of Plymouth, has announced the launch of the first stage of its dedicated Maritime Autonomy sensor and weather test range in Plymouth Sound. Located on the Breakwater Fort, this milestone marks a significant step forward for the Maritime Autonomy Assurance Testbed (MAAT) programme and Plymouth’s development as the UK’s National Centre for Marine Autonomy.

The MAAT programme aims to deliver an assurance framework that reduces barriers to the adoption of maritime autonomous systems (MAS), both for defence and commercial purposes. A key component of the framework is standardised and accessible test and evaluation to objectively demonstrate the capabilities and performance boundaries of MAS. The new test range will support the UK’s maritime autonomy ambitions by:

1. Providing traceable quantification of sensors performance in UK coastal conditions, understanding how the latter will affect the ability to detect objects and make correct navigational decisions.

2. Utilising ground truth data to improve the accuracy of simulation models critical for verifying and validating complex autonomous systems.

3. Generating a real time digital twin of Plymouth Sound, expanding testing environments for uncrewed systems and improving the quality of trial outputs.

Being able to evidence the true performance of the situational awareness of MASS in different environmental conditions is a critical component to be able to demonstrate performance thresholds, regulatory compliance and system safety. NPL and the Met Office have previously collaborated on a multi year project funded by Department for Transport to define the safety principles and test requirements for sensors used by self driving vehicles.

Future phases will see the expansion of further test nodes across a wider water space, to complement that deployed on the fort, as well as in the sub surface domain. This will deliver a significant capability uplift in Plymouth and the UK to support on water trials and testing for uncrewed systems.