Navy Teaching Unmanned Subs to Think

Burney Simpson

The U.S. Navy is expanding its work on unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) as part of the military’s focus on cyber-and electronic- warfare.

An unmanned craft from SeeByte uses its Neptune technology to share data with other unmanned vehicles and determine a collective response to a threat. A human operator sets the overall objective for a team of vehicles that use an algorithm to build a plan to meet the objective.

Britain’s Royal Navy also uses products from Edinburgh, Scotland-based SeeByte to operate UUVs developed by Canada and the UK.

The US applied short-range UUVs to gather intelligence in response to Iran’s plans to mine the Persian Gulf, according to the publication Breaking Defense.

The Pentagon’s emphasis on technology and unmanned systems is part of the Third Offset Strategy introduced in 2014 by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. In brief, the idea is to offset the enemy’s strength in one area with a strength of your own in a different area.

Some of the technologies falling under the Third Offset Strategy are robotics and system autonomy, miniaturization, and big data.

The Pentagon’s Long-Range Research and Development Planning Program also is looking to better collaborate with private industry on these technologies.

“We are knee-deep in the Third Offset Strategy discussion… along with our army and air force and DARPA leadership in supporting the (Defense Department’s) focus [on] man-machine interface with cyber, EW, and unmanned systems,” said Rear Admiral Mathias Winter, Breaking Defense reported.

The UUV technology remains in development, and the Pentagon is also working on adapting it to larger vessels operating on longer trips. The Navy plans to test these Long Diameter Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (LDUUV) this summer in an open ocean trip from San Diego to San Francisco.