The Navy's 2007 Unmanned Surface Vehicle Master Plan, approved by the Program Executive Office for Littoral and Mine Warfare (PEO LMW) this past summer, calls for development and fielding of a
family of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) capable of performing at least seven surface warfare missions while reducing risk to personnel and Navy costs.
The plan aims at defeating the "diverse asymmetric threats" that threaten U.S. maritime forces, which are "not easily recognized and operate in atypical ways." It notes that "unmanned systems have the potential and in some cases the demonstrated ability to reduce risk to manned forces, and provide the force multiplication needed to perform tasks that manned vehicles cannot." Missions envisioned for USVs are mine countermeasures, antisubmarine warfare (ASW), maritime security, surface warfare, special operations forces support, electronic warfare, and maritime interdiction operations.
Four types of vehicles are considered essential: semi-submersible craft, conventional planing hulls, semi-planing hull craft, and hydrofoils, although other types could be defined as USVs.
The Navy has used remotely operated surface vehicles since World War II. Drone boats retrieved samples of radioactive water after each of the 1946 atomic bomb test blasts at Bikini Atoll; during the Vietnam War, they swept mines; in 1997 a prototype remote minehunting system developed by Lockheed Martin was tested in the Persian Gulf; and in 2003 several unmanned vehicles were used for mine-clearing during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The PEO notes that national and Navy transformation strategy validates the shift to greater reliance on unmanned systems, and in particular, their integration into Fleet operations. The plan cites their advantages in terms of cost, coverage, productivity, loiter capability, and vulnerability. Such vehicles are far less expensive to operate than manned Navy ships for the same missions. "Awareness of the environment" coverage provided by new USVs will be far more effective than for previous generations, thanks to dramatic improvements in surveillance technologies.
The unmanned vehicles' productivity for intelligence gathering and surveillance also will be far greater, thereby freeing manned surface ships for other missions. Their ability to maintain coverage over a longer period produces more comprehensive and accurate data than shorter missions by manned ships. Their use also allows commanders to keep manned platforms out of range of enemy weapons.
The Navy will support the seven mission areas with three standard USV classes: Harbor-class craft, based on the Navy's standard seven-meter rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB) for the maritime security mission; Snorkeler-class semisubmersible vehicles for mine countermeasures towing, antisubmarine warfare, and potentially for special-ops missions; and Fleet-class vehicles capable of carrying the same payload as the 11-meter RHIB, variants of which will support mine countermeasures, protected-passage ASW, and high-end surface warfare missions. A non-standard X class of systems capable of supporting special operations forces and mine interdiction missions is also being considered.
The plan urges the Navy to develop systems capable of operating with greater autonomy to reduce data flow to and from vehicles. More advanced target recognition systems and techniques are needed to enable vehicles to reduce data transmission. The PEO's plan calls for aligning the acquisition strategies for the four vehicle classes, based on maximum possible use of common core systems and interfaces.
The plan also endorses continued deployment of the mission modules developed for the Littoral Combat Ship program to provide early feedback from operators that could be helpful in future unmanned programs. It urges the Navy to proceed at a "crawl-walk-run" pace to identify lessons for development—for example, initial use of man-in-loop systems prior to starting work on more advanced semiautonomous and fully autonomous systems.
The plan supports investment in a balanced unmanned surface vehicle technology program based on five technical imperatives: autonomy, obstacle/collision avoidance, coupled payloads and weapons, launch and recovery, and use of advanced hulls and mechanical and electrical systems.
The office also seeks to pursue USV development in compliance with the DOD's Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems and with office-chartered unmanned-systems standards in development, and plans to continue coordination with Navy operational, doctrinal, and training commands on development and refinement of USV concepts.