NAVAL DRONES

It's time for our annual wrap-up of the stories on unmanned naval systems that most resonated on this site, social media feeds, and the public writ large.  Here are the top naval drone stories of the year: The introduction of UAVs for maritime missions by non-state actors, specifically migrant rescue and anti-piracy , became reality. The Royal Navy established a UAV Squadron  to intitutionalize its ScanEagle operations . Despite continued operational testing with the X-47B prototype, politics and indecision created further delays with the U.S. Navy's  UCLASS RFP (still not released by the way). Unmanned systems were key in the Malaysian Airlines Flight #370 Search . The  MQ-8C Fire Scout made significant strides towards its first operational deployment. The U.S. Navy's  Swarming USV program , really a plug and play unmanned craft system, garnered significant interest. Interestingly, the story that seemed to pick up the most moment

2 May 2014 - Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jonathan Greenert tours Pennsylvania State University's Applied Research Laboratory facilities to see firsthand their innovative anti-torpedo torpedoes and unmanned undersea vehicles. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Peter D. Lawlor/Released) Since he assumed office in 2011, the development of unmanned systems payloads has been a priority during the tenure of U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathon Greenert.  His recent  Position Report  provides updates to several programs discussed in his original  Navigation Plan. Highlights related to unmanned systems include: Undersea Warfare "In the fall of 2014, our large displacement unmanned undersea vehicle ( LDUUV ) program reached its first acquisition gate, Milestone A, which initiated technology development." Unmanned Air Systems "We continued testing the  X-47B  Unmanned Carrier Aircraft System Demonstrator, and for the first t

This year's United States FIFTH Fleet's International Mine Countermeasures Exercise is well underway in Middle East waters, running until 13 November.  This third iteration of the exercise will be the largest ever, with 6,500 sailors from 44 nations and 38 ships participating.  As with past exercises , unmanned undersea vehicle detachments from several countries will show off their latest hardware in a realistic operating environment.  A total of 19 UUVs will take part in the waters of the Arabian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and the northern Red Sea.  On the U.S. side, a focus will be placed on overcoming unmanned mine-countermeasures challenges including the transfer of sensor data at sea, reducing unmanned mission duration, and enhancing trust in autonomy.   One of the new unmanned technologies to be demonstrated during the exercise is Northrop Grumman's Mine-Hunting Unit (MHU) .  The MHU unmanned surface vehicle tested  its ability to deploy, tow, and retrieve the  AQS-24A

Depiction of ATAC Anti-piracy UAV. We've talked about privately-funded drones for maritime eco-activism  and   humanitarian operations , so it's not surprising to see another naval mission where unmanned air vehicles have bled into the private sector.  Now, at least one private security company has offered UAV services as an anti-piracy solution. Commercial shipping companies embraced private security as a means for protecting their ships after piracy in the Indian Ocean expanded significantly in the late 2000's, putting crews at risk and costing shippers billions in dollars in increased insurance premiums. Incidents of Somali piracy have been virtually non-existent since 2012, primarily due to the hardening of commercial shipping targets by embarked security teams. Other counter-measures, such as fire hoses, razor wire, and hardened crew citadels were too easily defeated by pirates, but to date, no ship with an armed security team has been successfully hijacked.

One of the more pressing technical challenges with today's unmanned underwater vehicles is maintaining an accurate navigational position.  Because GPS signals will not penetrate the water's surface, UUVs typically rely on inertial navigation systems and periodic trips to the surface to gain an accurate satellite fix. Aquanauts with REMUS AUV - NPS Photograph Bathymetric navigation, or finding one's ways through the contours of the sea floor, has been a tool used by mariners - both surface and subsurface - since the advent of sonar.  But accuracy was hampered due to inaccurate underwater charts and the processing limitations. Advances in sensors and computing may change these dynamics as explored in Ensign Jacob T. Juriga's recent  Naval Postgraduate School Thesis . Juriga's research focused on terrain aided navigation (TAN) through a series of autonomous vehicle trials near the Aquarius Underwater Research Station located in Islamorada, Florida.  There, usi

By now, most readers are familiar with the U.S. Navy's new swarming drone experiment using the  CARACaS (Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing)   system for automating small surface craft. The hype surrounding this development is significant, and some of it is rightfully deserved. Automated boats will find a place in future naval operations, but their capabilities and limitations must be more fully understood before that happens.  August 2014 - A swarm of CARACaS equipped patrol boats on the James River - U.S. Navy image. Capabilities The primary b enefits of autonomous unmanned vessels are longer endurance than manned patrol boats, and of course, a reduction in risk to human sailors.  Naval budgeteers consistently lament the cost of personnel, so o stensibly, automated boats will be less expensive than training and maintaining human crews.  On the other hand, the Navy's force protection boat crews, most of them resident in the Naval Expeditionary

Lieutenant Matt Hipple, United States Navy has begun a full court press to use unmanned systems as a form of defense against anti-ship missiles.   Here in Proceedings , he discusses the concept of unmanned aerial vehicles as a decoy to draw fire away from naval vessels. Matt sees these systems as a viable alternatives for shipboard defense to those currently in use, to include missiles, close-in-weapon gun systems, active electronic jamming, and passive distraction measures such as chaff. Here, he presents his case to  Athena East , When considering the ever-increasing numbers of sea and shore-based anti-ship missiles versus a smaller inventory of expensive defensive Standard missiles, the concept sounds reasonable.  The idea of aircraft as defensive ship decoys certainly isn't new.  In the Falklands conflict, Prince Andrew flew his helicopter in this manner to defend against Argentina's Exocet missiles.  "The helicopter is supposed to hover near the rear of the a

An S-100 UAV Approaches Motor Vessel Phoenix (Image courtesy MOAS) We've written about the use unmanned air vehicles by maritime conservation organizations.  We've also highlighted the use of drones by European navies to support naval forces in interdicting the stream of refugees moving across the Mediterranean from North Africa.  In a predictable evolution of this trend, the non-profit Migrant Offshore Aid Station ( MOAS ) group has flown its first unmanned aircraft m aritime patrols  30 nautical miles Southeast of Lampedusa,  Italy fro m the motor vessel Phoenix.  The two S-100 UAVs embarked on Phoenix and operated by Schiebel technicians will be able to locate and assess migrants in distress. According to MOAS co-founder Chris Catrambone, the drones will act as a "force multiplier" during their 21 day mission to assist navies in rescuing vessels along the most traversed migrant route.

On June 11, at  the eighth annual Center for New American Security’s National Security Conference, Paul Scharre, F ellow and Project Director  for the  20YY Warfare Initiative discussed the future of robotics in warfare to include the use of unmanned swarms, which have been discussed extensively here .  The video (below) is thought-provoking, and worth watching in its  entirety , but we've provided the highlights, especially as they relate to naval systems. He describes several naval scenarios, including the use of unmanned surface vehicles to disrupt small boat swarm attacks on larger combatants and UAV counter-swarms . He also proposes that unmanned missile barges could work in tandem with the U.S. Navy's fleet of guided missile destroyers are limited in magazine capacity for missile defen se. In the undersea realm, Scharre alludes to DARPA's Hydra project, in which unmanned vehicles would sit dormant on the sea floor until required to awaken for their missions

The US Navy recently announced that it will make more use of submarine drones, contracting with marine technology developer Teledyne Benthos to re-purpose the Slocum Glider as an instrument used for military activity. The contract is worth $203.7M.   If you haven’t heard of it yet, here is what the Slocum Glider is: a 5 foot-long autonomous underwater vehicle capable of moving to specific locations and descending to depths of 4,000 feet. It is driven by variable buoyancy, and it can move both horizontally and vertically.   The Slocum Glider can be programmed to patrol for weeks at a time, collecting data on its environment, surfacing to transmit to shore while downloading new instructions at regular intervals. Compared to traditional methods, the drones have a relative small cost: the need for personnel and infrastructure is reduced to its minimum and the vehicle is able to work around the clock and around the calendar. It works very well: in November 2012, an autonomous gl

Bio-inspired maritime robotics is an emerging field gaining significant traction. Two examples the U.S. Navy has funded include  Boston Engineering's Bioswimmer,  and the odd robotic jellyfish,  Cyro .  Both of these projects look clumsy compared to a robotic fish recently developed by a consortium of Polish researchers from the Technical University of Krakow, the marine technology firm  FORKOS, and the Polish Naval Academy.  The group's CyberRyba ("Cyber-fish") autonomous underwater vehicle can move along a preset route, but will eventually be able to autonomously  avoid obstacles and log data from a  sonar or video camera. The carp-like CyberRyba's uncanny realistic movement is aided by an articulating body and tail as well as independently moving pectoral fins allowing it to hover in place. The ultimate goal of the research is to support the European Defence Agency's "Swarm of Biomimetic Underwater Vehicles for Underwater ISR" (SABUVIS) progr

Unmanned systems are finding use on a larger variety of naval vessels, including those normally too small to operate helicopters.  Navies and coast guards operating Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) in particular, are finding that unmanned systems can greatly extend the reach and versatility of these compact combatants. OPVs as a category are not well-defined; they're generally smaller than a corvette, larger than a patrol boat, and feature efficient diesel engines for long endurance,though generally at slower speeds than larger combatants.  They sometimes feature small flight decks (but usually not hangars), small-to-medium caliber naval guns, and a few have short-range surface-to-air missiles for self defense.  Though often conceptualized for coastal defense, the endurance and sea-keeping ability of OPVs often allows them to support global, open ocean missions. Skeldar operating on a Spanish OPV. The list of Navy OPVs operating as drone motherships is growing rapidly.   The n

Robots fascinate humans. They abound in movies: Star Wars, the Terminator, the Matrix. They are a foil for the human condition. In rosy predictions they are like Star Trek’s Data, “perfect” in strength and intellect yet void of emotion. In dystopian futures, killer robots are poetic justice. Created by humanity, robots attempt to annihilate their creators. If told killer robots exist in the U.S. arsenal, most Americans would probably think of “drones.” The name sounds robotic; it implies automaton behavior. Drones lack an onboard crew, and just like robots, drones fascinate Americans. In one important way, however, drones are not robots: they are flown by humans; they are just flown by remote control, but this creates a problem all of its own. The Armed Forces are not even sure how to deal with drone pilots. The pilots play a pivotal role in combat operations. They make life or death decisions. They press the button to fire missiles. They probably engage in more “lethal actions” th

Migrants rescued by the frigate Maestrale. Image courtesy Marina Militare. Hardly a single naval mission area remains that has been untouched by unmanned systems of the air, surface, or undersea variety.  Most recently, Italy's navy announced that with the help of surveillance from an unmanned air system, 1,049 African migrants en route to Sicily had been rescued.   The ongoing rescue missions are part of Operation "Mare Nostrum"(Our Sea), which has been underway since last fall when over 400 migrants from Eritirea and Syria perished near Italy's coasts. Presumably, the drone the Italians referenced was the ScanEagle, which was initially evaluated for ship-board use in October 2010. Two systems each consisting of 5 fixed-wing aircraft were purchased to be employed by the Maestrale Class Frigate beginning this year.  The Italians also recently acquired the  S-100 Camcopter , intended for counter-piracy duties in the Indian Ocean. 

The Australian government recently approved the acquisition of a fleet of US Navy  Triton   surveillance drones  to patrol our oceans. Australia has mostly used Israeli drones to date, such as the  Heron s in Afghanistan. So as we dip our toes into the American UAV market, it’s worth taking note of a recent development that might be threatening US primacy in this area. While the  Predator  and  Reaper  laid the groundwork for the use of armed drones in warfare, a question remains about the survivability of the technology against modern air defences. Developing a stealthy long-range drone with a decent weapons payload that could go beyond missions in Yemen and Pakistan appeared to be the next order of business for the US, especially in the future Asia-Pacific theatre. Projects like the demonstrator  X-47B  unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) have shown promise in achieving those missions. But for now the US Navy has decided to go for an unmanned carrier-launched surveillance and stri

If airborne search assets succeed in finding the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines Flight #370, what happens US Navy Towed Pinger Locator. next?  Generally, the key to determining the cause of air plane crashes at sea is dependent upon the recovery of the data recorder, or "black box" as it is generally known.  A black box has an acoustic "pinger" which is activated upon hitting the water and transmits a signal, sometimes for up to 30 days.  Once crash debris is spotted on the ocean, salvage experts will use predictive modeling software to determine an approximate location of where the aircraft actually went down.  Even small ocean currents of a knot or two can push floating debris hundreds of miles away from the original crash site over a two week period. At that point, if it is determined that one or more of the regional navies involved will search for the black box, a towed pinger locator will be deployed from a ship, along with a towed side scan sonar or de

Let’s face facts: it appears the U.S. Navy is incapable of building surface combatants, even small ones, for less than about a billion dollars apiece.  Consequently, it is likely the fleet will continue to shrink for the foreseeable future.  Yet it appears that the global demand for surface ship presence remains high for both peacetime operations and as an on-call force for contingency response.  So how can the Navy continue to meet worldwide operational commitments given fewer ships?  The key to maximizing the effectiveness of a declining surface force lies in combining suitable motherships with the latest unmanned warfighting technology.   Unmanned naval systems are rapidly proliferating internationally because they are increasingly capable and cheaper than manned alternatives for certain missions.  To date, sea-based unmanned systems have primarily conducted intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and mine countermeasures operations.  But within the next decade or so, we’ll

In most ‘drone’ conferences, there comes an awkward moment when a panelist realizes that the category ‘drone’ has very little to do with the question that they’re asking. To quote the Renaissance philosopher Inigo Montoya, “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.” In order to improve the remote aviation technology discussion, we need to be clear what we’re actually talking about.  What we should be talking about is ‘remote aviation technology,’ which is simply a fusion of the air and cyber domains through the ubiquitous technologies of datalinks, autopilots, and performance airframes. The fundamental tension is not between risk and responsibility, the two things over which the pop-sci-strat ‘drone’ debate obsesses, but between latency and performance. To the risk point, a military has a moral obligation to reduce risk to its warfighters, so reducing risk through tech is not new; to the responsibility point, professionalism and integrity are the roots for the warfi