Because of cost, risks to personnel, and other issues, unmanned vehicles increasingly are becoming important systems in the world’s militaries. This year, the Naval Institute asked the commanders of the world’s navies: "What do you see as the future uses of unmanned aerial, underwater, and surface vehicles with your navy?"
Vice Admiral Chris Ritchie, AO, Royal Australian Navy
To define the requirements for the maritime force of the future, the Royal Australian Navy has developed the Navy Innovation Strategy. This strategy includes the development of future maritime operational concepts for the 2010 and 2020 epochs, which are being validated as part of the Navy's Headmark experimentation process. Future Maritime Operational Concept 2020, which explores the capabilities the future fleet must possess to be operationally relevant, pays particular attention to the potential uses of unmanned aerial, underwater, and surface vehicles.
In addition to enduring maritime tasks, there is an increasing requirement for the Royal Australian Navy to become adept at operations in the littorals, especially in the projection, protection, and sustainment of deployed land forces. This is an ideal environment for the employment of unmanned vehicles that can provide extended reach and access to denied or unsafe areas of operation while reducing risks to people and platforms. Australian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) should be integrated fully into the maritime battle space in the 2010s as part of a wider network-centric architecture. In addition to UAVs operating off Australian ships, the Navy will access this maturing technology through networking with other joint and combined assets. Through their ability to operate autonomously in-theater for extended periods, UAVs will act as a significant force multiplier and can be expected to shoulder much of the surveillance, hazardous target identification, and battle damage assessment tasks. It also is conceivable that toward the end of that decade unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) could enter Australian Defence Force service, possibly operating from the next generation of major amphibious ships.
With regard to undersea warfare, unmanned underwater and underwater combat vehicles (UUVs and UUCVs) will become an integral part of submarines' armories. This will expand submarine surveillance capabilities, the delivery of weapons, and most important, allow submarines to join the network-centric battle space. In the mine countermeasures role, the Royal Australian Navy has extensive experience operating tethered UUVs. In addition, it has developed and operates innovative unmanned minesweeping drone boats. Future mine warfare capabilities are likely to include a combination of autonomous UAVs, UUVs, and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to detect, localize, and neutralize mines more quickly and at much greater ranges without putting people at risk.
Finally, the Royal Australian Navy's Hydrographic Service has been at the forefront in adopting leading-edge technologies to gather hydrographic and oceanographic data, including the highly successful Australian-developed laser airborne detection system. Unmanned vehicle technology offers great potential for meeting future hydrographic requirements, in particular the need for rapid environmental assessment for littoral operations.
Vice Admiral R. D. Buck, CMM, Canadian Navy
UAVs are becoming permanent features of the modern military landscape. Work has been ongoing in Canada for many years on the development of UAVs, and Bombardier's Peanut vertical takeoff and landing UAV was a pioneer in this field and continues to show great promise. The Canadian Navy currently operates the Barracuda USV for naval gunnery training (as a target) and thought is being given to equipping this craft with a small radar or electro-optical/infrared sensor for other missions. Defence Research and Development Canada has been developing UUVs for several years and continues to refine its work, primarily for remote mine hunting.
While USVs and UUVs eventually will prove to be key components of any naval order of battle, it is the rapid advancement of UAV capabilities and their uses that is garnering the most attention. Led by the Canadian Forces Experimentation Centre, Canadian Forces is well on the road toward acquiring its own operational UAV capability. So far, efforts have concentrated on surveillance for land operations. Commencing next summer, however, a series of littoral experiments will be conducted to determine how UAVs fit into the overall architecture of Canadian maritime operations.
Clearly, UAVs can be employed in a wide variety of domestic and international maritime missions at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. These missions range from wide-area and tactical surveillance and reconnaissance, to attack missions, force protection, battle damage assessment, electronic warfare, and communications relay.
For Canada, however, it is in the surveillance of our immense ocean areas, particularly the Arctic, where UAVs would be especially useful. Today, the primary surveillance tools are electronic intelligence, maritime patrol aircraft, chartered civilian aircraft, ships' self-reports, and information exchange with other government departments. These systems have varying levels of effectiveness and timeliness. Future systems such as high-frequency surface wave radar and the automatic identification system will provide a wealth of additional and timely information that will contribute to the compilation of the recognized maritime picture. UAVs might be configured to supplement the coverage of these surveillance systems, but their greatest potential benefit will be to provide Canada with increased and very cost-effective flexibility of response to contacts of interest.
Both at home and abroad, UAVs soon will be an integral component of Canada's maritime order of battle.
Admiral Miguel Vergara, Chilean Navy
As the technology necessary to obtain unmanned vehicles becomes more accessible and its cost becomes more affordable, operational incorporation will be expedited—especially if in many assignments we would not be risking personnel, who have taken time and money to qualify and train, or high-cost equipment, such as aircraft or ships. It is important to point out that if an unmanned vehicle is lost, the enemy will not have a bargaining chip, as with a prisoner, who could be used for the purposes of blackmail—as was clearly appreciated during the Persian Gulf conflict.
Since 1995 the Chilean Navy has relied on remotely operated vehicle systems for the support of search-and-rescue tasks and the visualization of the marine bottom and immersed objects, operated by diverse specialists knowledgeable in the use of these technologies.
We also are interested in acquiring UAV systems with the aim of having real-time information from the air for different zones of interest. Such would be the case in times of war (for surveillance of disembarkation places and oceanic access points, or for trans-horizon vision) as much as in times of peace (for support of search and rescue or patrol on exclusive economic zones).
An important feature of unmanned assets is that the information received from these vehicles can be processed in different parts in real or deferred time, from places often unreachable by human beings and without risk to people or equipment. As far as our capabilities and resources permit, I estimate that the procurement and use of different types (UUVs, USVs, and UAVs) will increase. In the midterm, the Chilean Navy considers the use of unmanned vehicles to be fundamental for the planning and execution of any type of naval operation.
We also are assessing the capabilities of future unmanned combat systems, which, combined with observation and intelligence-gathering unmanned systems, should be of great utility in war and during the peace operations of the future.
Vice Admiral Mauricio Soto Gomez, Columbian Navy
The Colombian conflict poses two challenges to the government's armed forces: defeating narco-terrorist guerrillas, illegal self-defense groups, and organized delinquency; and confronting drug trafficking and criminal organizations responsible for financing these criminal structures. The use of UAVs offers a unique opportunity to increase the tactical mobility of our units on land, rivers, and oceans by providing critical real-time intelligence that exposes the enemy's activities and modus operandi.
In the operations common to the low-intensity conflict currently taking place in Colombia, the Colombian Navy believes UAVs can play an active and possibly decisive role as intelligence platforms. The ability of UAVs to monitor objectives over large areas and transmit information, images, and specific location data while hovering will allow us to learn, in real time, the activities of practically any terrorist threat in the making. This data will assist units preparing to counter such a threat. Consequently, UAVs are a promising technology in the protection of forces because they reduce risks to friendly forces. They also are multipliers of tactical mobility for the Colombian Navy in the evaluation and inspection of possible penetration routes in areas that are difficult to access. In addition, we believe UAVs are ideal tools for the reconnaissance and surveillance of large oil and gas facilities and the monitoring of oil theft along pipelines in areas that are difficult to control. The new infrared and gamma ray spectrometers currently being fitted on board UAVs can detect oil line leaks caused by sabotage or theft.
In the midterm, the Colombian Navy hopes to use the UAVs' complementary technology to eliminate human risk in reconnaissance missions in areas of heavy criminal presence; to facilitate patrolling and maritime interdiction by reducing unnecessary deployment of surface units and operational costs; and to increase tactical mobility in areas where there are poor environmental conditions or a lack of resources.
In practice runs by the high-altitude Predator UAV, there have been no operational difficulties. Nevertheless, whenever this technology is acquired in Colombia, the cost-benefit ratio must surpass current commercial and military UAVs. Their autonomy and reaction capability should be more flexible to operational requirements when mission changes occur. The UAVs' operational range also should be optimized, because the current requirement to deploy a land-support platform to guarantee command and control of operations, as well as reception of information, demands high mobility over land with little enemy presence—a situation that is difficult to guarantee in jungles, marshes, and muddy areas. Low-altitude UAVs should offer full assurance that information transmission is clear and precise, without military satellite capabilities, in topographic conditions such as the jungle and marshy areas where the Colombian Navy operates.
In summary, future UAVs employed by the Colombian Navy will be vital assets to help increase the strategic asymmetry against the enemy, to surprise him, to monitor his activities better, and to ensure military superiority.
Vice Admiral Jean-Louis Battet, French Navy
In recent years, unmanned vehicles have been presented by many as a great solution to meet specific military requirements and missions. The French Navy has limited experience using unmanned surface and underwater vehicles, but as technology improves, it is considering new areas for their future use.
Our approach is cautious but determined: we want to make sure we will leverage in due time our operational capabilities with unmanned vehicles in those areas where advantages will exceed drawbacks. The question for us is when this will happen. Research-and-development work is supporting operational analysis in various warfare areas to operate remote or autonomous unmanned vehicles either from our next generation of ships and submarines or from land.
Expected advantages of unmanned vehicles include reduced exposure to human loss and political risks, reduced acquisition and operating costs of specific operational capabilities, increased stealthiness for sensors, and adaptability to perform multiple missions. Compared to current capabilities, however, drawbacks still are numerous for many applications, mainly because higher complexity induces higher costs and reduced reliability.
My vision for the future is that UAVs and UUVs will contribute greatly to several mission areas, and USVs will be developed as an interim capability to UUVs.
Unmanned surface vehicles could be used in mine warfare operations (as dredgers or Q-routes openers), in force protection (against asymmetric threats), in intelligence operations along unfriendly shores (for electronic or communications intelligence), in amphibious operations (for shore reconnaissance), and possibly as platforms to deliver weapons remotely. USVs operated from shore also could be helpful in surveillance of harbor approaches and traffic separation schemes (it is very busy along France's Atlantic coastline) as part of our strategy to reduce possible economic or terrorist threats. Unmanned underwater vehicles should be able to perform similar missions at all times (with no sea state limitation), along with littoral antisubmarine warfare, but their development probably will be more complex. We are considering using UUVs remotely from all types of ships (as sensors) and submarines (as an extension of their combat systems), or autonomously from shore (for surveillance or environmental observation).
Last, but not least, in my view UAVs will leverage our force capabilities if they can be operated from ships (up to sea state five) and at a lower cost than helicopters or maritime patrol aircraft to perform standing surveillance missions or to offer specific support to tactical warfare areas (including target designation). Much research and development is under way with the objective of operating UAVs from our next generation of multimission frigates, amphibious ships (the Mistral class), and aircraft carriers.
Vice Admiral Hans Lussow, German Navy
The German Navy has a long and successful tradition of using remotely piloted vehicles, beginning with the Seal surface vehicle as part of the Troika mine countermeasures system, which came into service in 1982. Troika proved its effectiveness under combat conditions in 1991 in the Persian Gulf, where German units cleared ground mines previously undetected by other mine hunters operating in that area.
The main advantages of drones are the enhanced survivability of platforms and the maximum protection of friendly personnel by keeping them out of a minefield. Following that experience, the new Minehunting 2000 system will be equipped with the surface drone Seahorse.
In 1998, the German Navy, in cooperation with civilian enterprises, developed a simulation model and started construction of a demonstrator platform to evaluate the future potential and configurations of UUVs, as part, for example, of a task group to provide organic mine countermeasures capabilities. Therefore, the German Navy focuses on roles such as mine reconnaissance operations and rapid environmental assessment.
UAVs presently are not used in the German Navy, but they will be introduced with the new K 130-class corvettes. They will be used to enhance sensor ranges to match weapon range, and in a surveillance and reconnaissance role to broaden the operational capabilities of these ships in the littorals. A survey is under way to identify systems that match the operational requirements and that will be available with the commissioning of the corvettes (2008 onward). Depending on the experience gained, it is foreseeable that UAVs will operate from frigates and will relieve helicopters from certain tasks that pose a higher risk for aircrews.
Even though expectations about the use of UAVs are very high, there are missions UAVs are not able to conduct. Acoustic intelligence, antisubmarine warfare, and transport tasks will remain the tasks of helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft.
Beside the operation of our own UAVs, we must enable our platforms to receive and exploit data gathered by UAVs operated from other services. Interoperability and compatibility requirements therefore also will influence the designs of future combat information and direction systems.
Vice Admiral Antonias Antoniadis, Hellenic Navy
The flexibility that unmanned aerial, underwater, and surface vehicles—completely autonomous or human controlled—have brought to warfare commanders has been demonstrated clearly in the past decade during allied and coalition operations in Iraq, the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. The Hellenic Navy, even though it is not yet an owner of such vehicles, has concluded that the integration of unmanned vehicles with its existing platforms and those used by special forces would enhance their operational capabilities and combat power. Such vehicles might be used in multiple roles, such as surveillance, identification, target classification, weapon carrying, mine hunting, and training.
The Hellenic Navy, having realized the crucial role that maritime UAVs are expected to play in the near future, and being strongly determined to remain a credible partner in the context of NATO and the European Union, participates in the NATO working group "On a Maritime UAV System" to keep in close touch with emerging technologies. The mission of this working group is to coordinate the scientific and research programs of the NATO member states concerning the construction of UAVs and other similar systems to end in maritime UAVs capable of operating in a high-risk, multi-threat environment without putting human lives at risk; relieving expensive and complex weapon systems, such as aircraft and helicopters, from secondary tasks; and improving the capabilities of self-defense early warning of naval platforms and acting as communications relays.
In addition, the Hellenic Navy, because of its composite theater of operations, is very interested in UUV programs capable of countering very shallow water mines. Furthermore, the Hellenic Navy will take into consideration any outcome of the NATO UAV working group that might be applicable to its operational needs. In view of the above, the new Hellenic Navy multipurpose corvette will be fitted for storage, deployment, and operation of two UAVs of the vertical launch and recovery type.
Vice Admiral Bernard Kent Sondakh, Indonesian Navy
Indonesia, the largest archipelagic country in the world, has more than 17,000 islands with 8 million square kilometers of territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. Geographically, 97% of its islands are accessible from the open sea. Indonesian national security therefore relies heavily on its naval force.
Indonesia stretches between two continents, Australia and Asia, and two oceans, the Pacific and Indian. This means Indonesia has two responsibilities. First, it must respect the principle of innocent passage by accommodating sea-lanes of communication, with the consequence that its territory is divided into several strategic compartments. Second, it must secure all choke points for maritime activities.
Because of a limited budget, it is unlikely there will be significant progress in the development of the naval forces in the next few years. The military budget is only 0.5% of Indonesia's gross domestic product, the lowest in Asia. The other problem is foreign political pressure in the form of the embargo on military equipment. These constraints influence the performance of four main components of operations: sensing capability, mobility, firepower, and command-and-control networking.
Facing these development difficulties, the Indonesian Navy has regrouped the fleet into three forces: a striking force consisting of combatant ships; a patrolling force of patrol vessels and downgraded combatant vessels; and a supporting force of vessels such as oilers, personnel transport ships, and training ships. The key tasks for the three forces are to minimize violence at sea, minimize navigation offenses, protect marine resources and the ecosystem, and minimize law offenses.
Developing an integrated sensing system in such situations is no easy task. The Navy must find a way, however. A possible choice for the short term is adding one unmanned surveillance vehicle. This option would be for surveillance and reconnaissance in three environments: surface, subsurface, and air.
For the long term, the Navy intends to use unmanned vehicle platforms to increase firepower. Developing naval forces need to be concerned about many factors, such as political atmosphere and regional security cooperation. This means support from many sides is needed.
Admiral Marcello de Donno, Italian Navy
In the Afghanistan campaign, experiences with unmanned aerial vehicles underlined the great value added by unmanned systems to operations that are less traditional and more networked.
UAVs are emerging as the next generation of airborne reconnaissance. Advances in aeronautics, electronics, materials, data processing, and propulsion are converging to produce a very capable family of UAV systems that will enable the collection and near-real-time dissemination of information, while minimizing risks to soldiers, sailors, and airmen.
Recognizing the importance of unmanned assets, the Italian Navy in 1997 defined an operational requirement for two classes of aerial UAVs: a short-range maritime UAV system able to operate from ships larger than 1,000 tons not fitted with organic aviation assets; and a medium-range joint UAV system able to operate from a control station installed on a ship.
In the short-range field, the Italian Navy intends to acquire a tactical UAV for surveillance and target-acquisition missions, with a minimum range of 70 miles, 2 hours of endurance, and 6,000 feet as the operative ceiling. The payload will include electro-optical/infrared systems with a laser designator/range finder and synthetic and inverted synthetic aperture radar capabilities. A crucial problem is the creation of a reliable automatic takeoff-and-landing system able to operate in bad weather conditions. This system's initial operational capability is envisaged for no sooner than 2008. The Italian Navy is very interested in several vertical takeoff and landing UAV programs that are under development. Among these are the German Seamos run by Daimler/Chrysler Aerospace and the Fire Scout by Northrop Grumman.
In the medium-range field, the Italian Navy is cooperating with the Italian Air Force in the acquisition of five General Atomics Predator A systems, which will enter service in 2004 at Amendola Air Force Base. The Italian Navy recently concluded the definition phase for a ground control station to be installed on a San Giorgio-class amphibious assault ship that will enable the control of Predators as well as associated sensors. The selected system is the modular ground control station manufactured by General Atomics. The initial operational capability for these systems is not expected before 2005.
The ground control station will give the Italian Navy greater capabilities in maritime surveillance and amphibious operations by allowing combat information centers to receive directly data and images from 24-hour-endurance aircraft.
At sea, unmanned vehicles are poised to become a major element in the underwater battle space. They will emerge as highly cost-effective force multipliers and will provide new capabilities and access to regions of the battle space where major assets cannot or will not be committed for reasons of practicality or risk.
The Italian Navy is interested in the applications of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for a variety of roles, viewing them as a way of covertly expanding its sphere of influence while reducing potential vulnerabilities in littoral areas. In fact, the major emphasis on littoral warfare, the proliferation of low-cost mines, high exercise costs, and risks related to the operation of present major combatants, amphibious units, and submarines, requires safe and covert reconnaissance to be the preferred method of identifying permissive areas.
Sponsored by the Ministry of Defense's Armament Directorate, a four-year AUV program is designed to demonstrate relevant technology and integration issues. The Italian Navy intends to develop systems equipped with a high-performance sonar and navigation system able to operate in support of mine countermeasures missions. As a secondary role, the system must be capable of being rapidly deployable with battle groups. These systems have been included in the combat system definition of the Italian Navy's next-generation frigate, the FREM (Frigate European Multimission).
Rear Admiral Kjell-Birger Olsen, Royal Norwegian Navy
Unmanned vehicles have obvious advantages compared to manned systems. For these reasons the Royal Norwegian Navy for some years has worked on introducing such systems into its inventory.
UAV systems will increase the Navy's ability to solve the full range of operational and tactical challenges in times of peace, crisis, and war. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a situation where they would not have a positive impact on operations. Accordingly, UAVs can contribute to almost all aspects of maritime operations. Some of these tasks can be accomplished by UAVs on their own, while in other situations they will be contributors, operating together with other assets.
In line with the concept of joint operations within the Norwegian armed forces, UAV procurement will be carried out as a joint program. It is therefore vital that the system be able to collect, process, and distribute information effectively as one unit in a larger network. The Royal Norwegian Air Force probably will operate the UAVs, although a number of them will be assigned to the Navy. When required, maritime UAVs will be operated from vessels.
According to present plans, the UAV system will come into service in 2008. The decision as to which type to procure will be made in the near future.
The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, on behalf of the Navy, has worked on UUVs for more than a decade. The long-term goal of this program is to introduce these vehicles to service in a number of roles. The possible military uses of UUVs include: mine countermeasures, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and antisubmarine warfare.
In April 2002, the Defence Research Establishment began a three-year project to develop the Hugin mine reconnaissance system. The project will enable delivery of a full-capacity system for mine hunting by 2004-05. In addition to its primary application of depth-independent mine hunting, the system will be suitable for military-grade seabed mapping, rapid environmental assessment, and covert or overt reconnaissance.
Adding antisubmarine capabilities to the Hugin system might be a future development. The Royal Norwegian Navy has no plans to introduce unmanned surface vehicles in the near future.
Fleet Admiral Ryszard Lukasik, Polish Navy
The Polish Navy first undertook work on unmanned vehicles in the 1970s. The aim of the project was to construct radio-controlled systems, to be used as mock targets in task group antimissile defense, for the 93-ton Project 918M-class patrol boats. The project was completed and at-sea trials were successful, but in the late 1980s it was decided to retire the system because of high maintenance costs and a decrease in mock-target effectiveness against new missiles with intelligent homing systems.
At me beginning or the 1990, when a new generation or mine countermeasures ships was introduced into the Polish Navy, research-and-development work started on the remotely operated mine countermeasures vehicle Ukwial. As a result, in the mid-1990s, the three modernized mine hunters of the Project 206 FM (Krogulec) class were equipped with remotely operated mine countermeasures systems of Polish production.
Principally the system is used to locate, identify, and dispose of bottom and anchored sea mines at depths from 5 meters to 200 meters, and up to 400 meters from the minehunting ship. The main application of the Ukwial is the delivery of mine-disposal charges on discovered mines. The vehicle also can be used for search and identification of other submerged objects.
Research-and-development work is-being conducted on a new version of a cable-controlled mine countermeasures single-use vehicle. Carrying its own explosive charge, it would be used to locate and destroy mines. In coming years it is planned to equip the Project 207 (Notec)-class minesweepers with the German-made remotely operated mine countermeasures vehicle Sea Fox.
The Polish Navy also uses other types of remotely operated vehicles—the U.S. Mk II Benthos and the French Achille. Both are mounted on Polish Navy rescue ships and are used for search, identification, and monitoring of submerged objects.
The short-term development and modernization plans of the Polish Navy do not foresee any research on or procurement of other types of unmanned vehicles.
Admiral Bulent Alpkaya, Turkish Navy
Within the context of modernization projects, the Turkish Nay aims to be a force that is small in number but great in fire power and whose effectiveness will be increased by force multipliers such as command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems. In this view, command-and-control projects are taking priority. To meet requirements in the early warning, reconnaissance, surveillance, and intelligence areas for the purpose of establishing and maintaining real-time tactical pictures of an operative area, Turkish naval forces are developing a system that is able to detect, identify, and classify contacts and observe them continuously.
In the early 1990s, a development program began as a joint effort within the Turkish armed forces. UAVs can be used effectively in the field because their small radar cross-section makes detection difficult, and they are more flexible and less expensive than other platforms such as ships and manned aircraft. Executing a mission without humans on board a platform brings obvious advantages. The risk of aircrew being killed, injured, or captured is removed. Unmanned air vehicles already are used as targets in antiair warfare training in the Turkish Navy.
The main missions of UAVs are: day or night reconnaissance, assault, surveillance and target acquisition, battle damage assessment, and battle-space management. Secondary missions of UAVs include adjusting indirect fire and supporting search-and-rescue operations. Real-time imagery from UAVs will be an additional force multiplier, relayed to operations centers to provide information to commanders so they can make accurate and timely decisions. Commanders at sea will have the capability to intercept imagery while it is transmitted to the control station. In addition, studies on unmanned helicopters are being conducted. These could be used in combined operations for antisubmarine and antisurface warfare with units of the same task group.
Interoperability is one of the main aims of the program. Common subsystems are important to ensure interoperability. These ground subsystems will be able to control or receive payload information from any UAV of any service. Since a joint program is being carried out and the services will have the same systems in their inventory, interoperability between the UAV systems from different services will be achieved.
It is hard to estimate the possible future uses of UUVs. One view is that with the aid of these vehicles the risks normally taken by ships and personnel will be reduced. In the future, UUVs might perform the dangerous missions currently carried out by manned assets, such as cleaning mined areas. These vehicles also will decrease mission time and increase performance.
Of course, UUVs also can be used for handling the surveillance duties of a harbor security system. Similarly, they can perform the same duty in open seas on the forward regions of the battle space. During tension or combat periods, with the help of imagination, these might be used for attack purposes. In all cases it would be hard for an enemy to detect and destroy a UUV because of its low signal levels and dimensions.
One of the main purposes of such systems where many transmitters and receivers are used is to help high-value platforms get target signals without disclosing their positions. Because of the difficulties of receiving passive signals, target detection is managed with the acoustic illumination of a platform and the use of other platforms as receivers. It would be a logical application to use UUVs for acoustic illumination of the battle space of the future. These vehicles can be used in all regions of the battle space, including the most forward and rearward areas.
UUVs will be used commonly for many purposes in the service of man underwater. They will take their place in defense technologies as an important element that provides advantages in the military field for the shapers of future operations.