NAVAL DRONES

by Dr. Diana Angelis, NPS Faculty, diangeli(at) nps.edu  The Navy currently has a number of Unmanned Maritime Systems (UMS) that perform a variety of missions including mine countermeasures, maritime security, hydrographic surveying, environmental analysis, special operations, and oceanographic research. While these unmanned systems were rapidly developed and fielded to meet immediate warfighter needs, some of the systems have not been subjected to the normal cost reviews associated with programs of record and in many cases the data required to develop rigorous cost models is limited or unavailable. As a result, the total ownership cost of unmanned maritime systems is not well defined, particularly the costs associated with operations and support. Dr. Diana Angelis and Mr. Steve Koepenick from SPAWAR have been working on a CRUSER funded project to better understand UMS lifecycle costs with an emphasis on the operations and support costs associated with unmanned underwater vehic

by Morgan Stritzinger, Public Relations Specialist, Textron Systems, mstritzi(at)textronsystems.com The collaboration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) extends relative reach, and therefore the operational footprint. The unmanned aircraft and USV work together to extend data link ranges, and the USV can carry, deploy and recover the UUV, thereby extending its range and providing a safer environment for the host vessel. Extending mission capabilities is critical to efficient and effective maritime missions, creating situational awareness that delivers actionable data and value. Unmanned systems are best suited for tasks too “dull, dirty or dangerous” for their manned counterparts and are a pertinent complementary system to manned asset efforts. This includes repetitive tasks that are more costly for humans to perform or represent opportunity for human error, situations in extreme weather and environmental co