Tag Archives: USV

And her name shall be Sea Hunter

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Just unveiled a few weeks ago, the 132-foot USV which aims to be the Navy’s newest 21st Century expendable sub-chaser has been formally christened.

sea hunter

Part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV Pronounced “Active,” ) program, in conjunction with the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Sea Hunter as she is now know, is a game changer.

“This is an inflection point,” Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Work said in an interview, adding he hoped such ships might find a place in the Western Pacific in as few as five years. “This is the first time we’ve ever had a totally robotic, trans-oceanic-capable ship.”

Sea Hunter will now move to San Diego for a two year pilot program to R&D just what the platform can do and what sensor package works best.

The ship’s projected $20 million all-up price tag and its $15,000 to $20,000 daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive to operate. For comparison, a single Littoral Combat Ship runs $432 million (at least LCS-6 did) to build and run about $220K a day to operate– but of course that is a moving target.

Still, its easy to see where a flotilla of Sea Hunters could provide a lot of ASW coverage on the cheap and even if mines or torpedoes take half of them out, it’s a hit to the treasury and not incoming C-17s to Dover with waiting honor guards.

And with that in mind, check out this super sweet walk-through/construction video to see just how simple this craft is.

Meet ACTUV

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DARPA just released some neat but brief 360-view footage of their Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) including some of it underway at a good clip (27 knots). The 132-foot USV is meant to be the expendable subchaser of the 21st century, and actually looks pretty sweet.

If they can get past concept and put 50-100 of these cheaply in the Western Pac, networked all sweet to a central ASW War Room, it could really negate all the skrilla the Norks and PLAN are dropping on subs.

Navy tests borg swarm of RHIBs

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In a move to proof of concept the idea that a transiting naval ship can be defended from potential small boat attacks, the Navy ran an excercise in which they used a baker’s dozen small craft to run interference for a surface ship on the move. While not revolutionary– it’s the concept of a carrier battle group in miniature– the fact that the small boats were all unmanned was.

From Navy Times

“The Arlington-based Office of Naval Research demonstrated the autonomous swarm boat technology over two weeks in August on the James River near Fort Eustis in Virginia — not far from one of the Navy’s largest fleet concentration areas. It said the Navy simulated a transit through a strait, just like the routine passage of U.S. warships through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

In the demonstrations, as many as 13 small unmanned patrol boats were escorting a high-value Navy ship. Then as many as eight of the self-guided vessels broke off and swarmed around a threat when a ship playing the part of an enemy vessel was detected, the office said, calling the demonstrations a success.”

An unmanned 11-meter rigid hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) from Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock operates autonomously in Newport News, Va. John F. Williams / Navy via AP

An unmanned 11-meter rigid hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) from Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock operates autonomously in Newport News, Va. John F. Williams / Navy via AP

 

While I cant see your typical tin can using something like this, ships with lots of deck and well space (gators, LCS, etc) could make good use of these in a deployed situation for sea control. Also, you could preposition flotillas of these floating drones in choke points and pirate held waters, with the sailors who are manning them either remotely linked in or circling above in a control aircraft (converted P-3?). Kinda neat overall.

More here.

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