<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Fewer qualified platforms and reduced personnel within the navy are the reality for many nations, although operational requirements might have remained the same or increased over time. At the same time, research is advancing in unmanned and autonomous systems, which have also found application in military use. Therefore, navies need to develop approaches for effective technological transformation. To fulfil this need, this study aims to identify and describe the relevant research from different disciplines and their respective relation to the design of future navies. The study commences with a literature review related to knowledge support for understanding how emerging technologies, such as maritime autonomous systems (MAS), find their place in a military organisation. The findings suggest that the armed forces should be categorised as a sociotechnical system, built of systems-of-systems that together enable capability, and that it is as a capability enforcer that the overall system should be developed. This highlights the importance of structural and organisational changes in making the best use of the technology, as well as in making the sociotechnical system as efficient as possible. Therefore, the armed forces need to be learning organisations, exercising joint planning, where there is room for knowledge sharing and flexibility within the organisation despite different hierarchical layers.</p>
</abstract>

Fewer qualified platforms and reduced personnel within the navy are the reality for many nations, although operational requirements might have remained the same or increased over time. At the same time, research is advancing in unmanned and autonomous systems, which have also found application in military use. Therefore, navies need to develop approaches for effective technological transformation. To fulfil this need, this study aims to identify and describe the relevant research from different disciplines and their respective relation to the design of future navies. The study commences with a literature review related to knowledge support for understanding how emerging technologies, such as maritime autonomous systems (MAS), find their place in a military organisation. The findings suggest that the armed forces should be categorised as a sociotechnical system, built of systems-of-systems that together enable capability, and that it is as a capability enforcer that the overall system should be developed. This highlights the importance of structural and organisational changes in making the best use of the technology, as well as in making the sociotechnical system as efficient as possible. Therefore, the armed forces need to be learning organisations, exercising joint planning, where there is room for knowledge sharing and flexibility within the organisation despite different hierarchical layers.

Military organisations and emerging technologies – How do unmanned systems find a role in future navies?

Swedish Defence University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Journal of Military Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Fewer qualified platforms and reduced personnel within the navy are the reality for many nations, although operational requirements might have remained the...

Search string	Total	Engineering	Social science	Management	Multi-disciplinary
(Autonomous OR unmanned) AND (surface OR underwater OR maritime) AND (system OR vehicle)	30,167	20,960 (69%)	1,163 (4%)	292 (1%)	239 (1%)
(Autonomous OR unmanned) AND (surface OR underwater OR maritime) AND (system OR vehicle) AND (military OR defence OR defence)	1,700	1,309 (77%)	69 (4%)	124 (1%)	11 (0.1%)
(concept development)	3,763	1,574 (42%)	746 (20%)	282 (7%)	13 (<0.01%)
(concept development) AND (military OR defence OR defence)	127	81 (35%)	18 (8%)	12 (5%)
Innovation AND military	3,263	1,226 (23%)	844 (16%)	389 (7%)	22 (<0.01%)

Military organisations and emerging technologies – How do unmanned systems find a role in future navies?

Article Category: Original Article

Published Online: Sep 14, 2022

Page range: 37 - 48

Received: Jun 28, 2021

Accepted: May 30, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jms-2022-0004

Keywords
autonomous systems, concept development, sociotechnical systems, capability development, capability lifecycle

© 2022 Therese Tärnholm et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Fig. 1

Result of initial literature search in the research publication database Scopus.com, performed March 2020

Military organisations and emerging technologies – How do unmanned systems find a role in future navies?

Article Category: Original Article

Published Online: Sep 14, 2022

Page range: 37 - 48

Received: Jun 28, 2021

Accepted: May 30, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jms-2022-0004

Keywordsautonomous systems, concept development, sociotechnical systems, capability development, capability lifecycle

© 2022 Therese Tärnholm et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Fig. 1

Result of initial literature search in the research publication database Scopus.com, performed March 2020

Keywords
autonomous systems, concept development, sociotechnical systems, capability development, capability lifecycle