Navy officials revealed earlier this year that the sea service would be expanding operational tests and other deployments of small unmanned vessels around Naval Base Ventura County and the Ventura and Channel Islands harbors between April and August.

“An incident occurred at approximately 3:28 p.m. [local time] on June 23 within the Channel Islands Harbor Marina involving the overturning of a support boat by an unmanned vehicle that was being towed out of the harbor,” a spokesperson from Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) said. 

The area is considered somewhat of a hotspot for Navy-supporting autonomous technology development and demonstrations. It includes controlled and cornered off locations designed for the secure demonstration and refinement of uncrewed vessels of different types and sizes. 

Granted anonymity to speak freely, a source familiar with the June 23 incident raised concerns that the captain of the support boat appeared to be in danger after the towboat was overturned by the maritime drone.  

The NAVWAR spokesperson told DefenseScoop that the operator involved declined medical attention after they were recovered by the emergency responders.

“A preliminary investigation indicated that the unmanned vehicle received an inadvertent command that turned the engine on, causing the towed vehicle to accelerate past and capsize the support boat. As a result, the training activity immediately held a safety stand-down with all members of the activity and is implementing additional safety procedures,” the spokesperson said.

They did not respond to follow-up questions regarding whether the “inadvertent command” that resulted in the flip came from a human or technical malfunction.

NAVWAR spokespersons also declined to confirm if the drone involved was a Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, or GARC, which sources initially suggested. The Navy recently unveiled plans to boost production of the 16-foot GARC — an unmanned surface vessel built by BlackSea Technologies, formerly known as Maritime Applied Physics Corp.

A spokesperson from BlackSea acknowledged DefenseScoop’s inquiry last week, but did not respond to questions regarding whether it was a GARC that flipped the tugboat.

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Robotic platforms not only keep sailors out of harm’s way, but they provide opportunities to expand the sea service’s warfighting capacity faster and at less cost than building traditional Navy vessels. They’re a key element of Project 33 and the CNO Navigation Plan that was released last year.

Plans for the upcoming industry engagement, slated for June 17-18 in the Washington metro area, were laid out in a special notice posted Friday on Sam.gov.

“The Future USV program will be an open ocean, 25+ knot, high endurance, non-exquisite, autonomous vessel. The vessel will be built to commercial standards and will provide the interfaces, payload deck area, and support for two forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU) containerized payloads, each weighing 80,000 [pounds],” officials wrote.

The Navy has already been experimenting with fairly large USV prototypes in recent years, such as the Sea Hunter, Sea Hawk, Mariner and Ranger.

The service has also been conducting market research. Last year, it released a request for information on medium unmanned surface vehicles, indicating that officials were interested in vessels less than 200 feet in length and under 500 tons displacement.

That RFI noted that the unmanned maritime systems program office (PMS 406) — which is also hosting next month’s industry engagement on Future USV — was “contemplating an accelerated approach with industry to leverage existing, manned or unmanned surface ship designs that can be modified to enable rapid delivery of an unmanned or optionally unmanned surface ship capability.”

The special notice about the Future USV program didn’t identify the specific types of payloads the Navy wants the platforms to carry or the missions they will perform.

The service had previously envisioned acquiring medium USVs for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as well as larger USVs with offensive strike capabilities. However, earlier this year, Rear Adm. William Daly suggested that officials may now be focusing on a platform that can be outfitted with containers capable of carrying both types of payloads, according to news reports.

Although the upcoming industry briefing is restricted to U.S. contractors, more information about the Navy’s plans for the Future USV program could become publicly available when the Defense Department releases its fiscal 2026 budget justification documents in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, John Phelan, the new secretary of the Navy, has indicated he’s keen on adding uncrewed platforms to the fleet.

“The unique capabilities that unmanned systems bring to the naval and joint force are a tremendous force multiplier, and I believe the Department of the Navy should appropriately and adequately resource the right solutions and doctrine, organization, training, personnel and facilities that support these capabilities, particularly in the Indo-Pacific,” he wrote in response to advance policy questions from senators ahead of his confirmation hearing in February.

“By providing persistent surveillance, intelligence gathering, defensive, and strike capabilities, unmanned systems will enhance lethality and serve as a strong and efficient deterrent to quickly respond to provocation while reducing risks and maintaining flexibility in the region,” Phelan wrote, noting that such tools could help the United States prevail in a potential future conflict against a peer competitor such as China.

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Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron 7 is slated to be established in May in San Diego, California, according to service officials.

The organization will be “primarily tasked with operating and maintaining” a variety of small USVs, a Navy official told DefenseScoop.

That includes Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft and “future RAS systems,” the official said.

Maritime Applied Physics Corp. manufactures the 16-foot GARC. The Defense Department has already obligated more than $160 million for the robotic boats, according to government contracting data.

The Navy is looking to ramp up GARC production to 32 vessels per month later this year, Rear Adm. Kevin Smith, the Navy’s program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, told DefenseScoop at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium earlier this month.

The establishment of USVRON 7 this spring will come about a year after the sea service stood up USVRON 3 — tasked with overseeing a fleet of GARCs and helping the sea service integrate, scale, experiment and employ those types of platforms — at Naval Base San Diego and three years after the creation of a unit now known as USVRON 1, which is based in Ventura County, California.

The launch of USVRON 7 is on the horizon as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti is looking for ways to quickly augment the force with uncrewed systems, autonomous capabilities and personnel who specialize in those technologies.

Last year, she issued a NAVADMIN announcement about the creation of a new robotics warfare specialist rating.

“RW Sailors will enable Robotic and Autonomous System (RAS) operations and maintenance at the tactical edge. RWs will be the subject matter experts for computer vision, mission autonomy, navigation autonomy, data systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning on our RAS platforms,” she wrote.

She later launched an initiative known as Project 33 with an aim of scaling those types of systems across the force in the near term so that the sea service will be ready for a potential war against China in the Taiwan Strait or other locations.

“The Chairman of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has told his forces to be ready for war by 2027 — we will be more ready,” Franchetti wrote in her CNO Navigation Plan. “Project 33 is how we will get more ready players on the field by 2027. Project 33 sets my targets for pushing hard to make strategically meaningful gains in the fastest possible time with the resources we influence.”

Officials envision small USVs performing important missions for U.S. Pacific Fleet. These types of platforms fit in with the “Hellscape” warfighting concept that Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has laid out for a potential conflict with China in the Taiwan Strait.

“Certainly, these systems are ideal in enclosed spaces … if you can deploy it,” Paparo said at a Brookings Institution event in November. “For closed spaces, for executing sea denial, this can be a very key capability.”

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The 16-foot GARC, an unmanned surface vessel, is built by Maritime Applied Physics Corp. The Defense Department has already obligated more than $160 million for the system, according to government contracting data.

Rear Adm. Kevin Smith, the Navy’s program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, told DefenseScoop this week on the sidelines of the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium that he expects to hit the production target of 32 GARCs per month later this year.

“We’re not there yet [but] they’re ramping up” Smith said. “That’s where we’re looking at as far as gearing up.”

The GARC effort previously received funding via the Pentagon’s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) initiative.

“The program started and … it just blossomed. It took off,” Smith said during a panel at the SNA symposium. “All of our APFIT boats have been built, 24 of them, and they’re all over the country. And we’re looking at maybe sending some overseas.”

Last year, the service stood up a new squadron, USVRON Three, at Naval Base San Diego to oversee a fleet of GARCs and help the sea service integrate, scale, experiment and employ these types of platforms. Eight of those systems have been delivered to the new unit, according to Smith.

During a panel at the SNA conference this week, Vice Adm. Jimmy Pitts, deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities, N9, suggested he’s keen on the autonomous vessels.

“We’re going to use that in a nontraditional sea-denial mission role directly for [U.S. Pacific] Fleet here in the near term,” he said.

A few months ago, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti unveiled her Project 33 initiative that has a goal of scaling robotic and autonomous systems across the force by 2027 so that the sea service will be ready for a potential war against China in the Taiwan Strait or other locations.

“The Chairman of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has told his forces to be ready for war by 2027 — we will be more ready,” Franchetti wrote in her CNO Navigation Plan. “Project 33 is how we will get more ready players on the field by 2027. Project 33 sets my targets for pushing hard to make strategically meaningful gains in the fastest possible time with the resources we influence.”

Last year, Franchetti also spearheaded the establishment of a new robotics warfare specialist rating to help facilitate robotic and autonomous system operations and maintenance at the tactical edge. Those personnel will include subject matter experts for computer vision, mission autonomy, navigation autonomy, data systems, AI and machine learning.

The Pentagon is also looking to scale the fielding of small USVs and other types of unmanned platforms via its Replicator initiative, which is the brainchild of Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.

At the SNA symposium, Smith didn’t explicitly mention Replicator or say whether the GARC is one of the platforms selected for scaled-up manufacturing under that initiative, but he noted that the Navy is ramping up production “to try to do what the DepSecDef has been pushing for.”

Smith declined to disclose the total number of GARCs expected to be delivered under the current procurement deal.

Meanwhile, USVRON Three is doing experiments and working to flesh out concepts of operation for the robotic platforms under its purview.

Smith suggested that future decisions about fielding the systems will be made by fleet commanders.

“It’s not a program of record,” he told DefenseScoop. “It’s more learning opportunity for small USVs and getting it into the hands of the sailor to see how we’re going to move forward.”

“The CNO has talked about having, you know, innovative ideas as far as small unmanned surface vessels that you could then use, obviously, in the field. So that’s kind of the thought is that, you know, what do we have available now and what have we learned for rapid fielding,” he said. “But it’s really for the decision of the fleet commander as far as having those assets … available. So it’s just another tool, I guess, in the tool bag as far as capability.”

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Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron Three, which was stood up May 17 at Naval Base San Diego and put under the command of Capt. Derek Rader, will oversee a “fleet” of small uncrewed surface vessels, including Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) built by Maritime Applied Physics Corp., according to a release.

The establishment of USVRON Three is the latest move in the sea service’s journey to build a so-called hybrid fleet of manned and unmanned systems. It came about three months after Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations, established a new “robotics warfare specialist” general rating.

“RW Sailors will enable Robotic and Autonomous System (RAS) operations and maintenance at the tactical edge. RWs will be the subject matter experts for computer vision, mission autonomy, navigation autonomy, data systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning on our RAS platforms,” according to a NAVADMIN announcement from Franchetti.

Those experts will be part of the new squadron, according to the service.

“The Navy is placing unmanned systems in the hands of 400 of our most talented warfighters to help integrate, scale, experiment, and employ these systems,” Vice Adm. Brendan McLane, commander of Naval Surface Forces U.S. Pacific Fleet, said during a speech at the May 17 ceremony to mark the establishment of USVRON Three.

The new squadron came about as the Pentagon pushes ahead with its Replicator initiative, which aims to accelerate programs and field thousands of “attritable autonomous” systems across multiple domains by August 2025 to help the U.S. armed forces counter China’s military buildup. The Pentagon has secured $500 million in funding for the first tranche in fiscal 2024 and has requested an additional $500 million for fiscal 2025. Additional tranches are being planned.

The Navy is pursuing multiple types of unmanned surface vessels via Replicator, including through a partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit. DIU earlier this year issued a solicitation for small, autonomous maritime drones that can operate in packs to monitor and engage adversaries’ ships.

During a congressional hearing last week, Nickolas Guertin, the acquisition chief for the Department of the Navy, said the DON is supportive of Replicator, but he also noted that it’s not just a matter of scaling production.

“One other aspect to that is when we’re looking at these kinds of initiatives, we want to make sure we carry forward the sustainability and support work to make sure that our … [service members] can actually use this stuff in a reliable way when they need to in a fight,” he told lawmakers.

Other officials have also noted that the military needs to flesh out the tactics, techniques, procedures (TTPs) and training for how it will employ next-generation uncrewed systems.

Although the Navy’s release last week about USVRON Three did not explicitly mention Replicator or connect the unit to that effort, it appears that its future work could facilitate the integration of those types of systems into the fleet.

“The mission of USVRON Three is to deliver the most formidable, unmanned platforms in the maritime domain. The squadron will be a cornerstone in building the foundational knowledge required to operate and maintain sUSV and will spearhead the development of TTPs for sUSV operations and sustainment,” per the release.

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A stated goal of Replicator is to accelerate programs and field thousands of “attritable autonomous” systems across multiple domains by August 2025 to help the U.S. armed forces counter China’s military buildup.

Officials say the department got the money it was seeking from Congress for fiscal 2024 as it works to achieve that goal.

“The Department has secured its needed funding of about $500 million for FY24, to include approximately $300 million from the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 defense appropriations bill supporting the Department’s reprogramming request and additional funding identified using existing authorities and Defense-wide sources,” the Pentagon said in a release Monday.

Some of that additional $200 million in funding will come from reprogramming “under-executed” funds that were available and other pots of money, senior defense officials told a small group of reporters during a call ahead of the announcement.

“The funding is fully identified from the department’s perspective. So in addition to the $300 million … there is additional money that is either in the FY ‘24 appropriation that could be used for this effect. There’s funding in the recently passed [national security] supplemental that could be used for this. And so … internally the funding is fully aligned to Replicator and we are just going through the final processes to formalize that,” one of the officials said.

After the call, the department issued a statement saying: “We were pleased to see the appropriators include approximately $300 million toward the initial tranche of Replicator systems. This amount fully satisfied the classified reprogramming request that we transmitted to Congress in January. Since the enactment of the FY24 budget, we have worked with Congress to successfully reach our requirement of around $500 million using existing authorities and Defense-wide sources.”

As DefenseScoop has previously reported, the first tranche includes kamikaze drones, unmanned surface vessels and counter-drone systems. The Pentagon publicly released some information about the systems it selected in its announcement Monday.

Officials noted that the vendor base for Replicator includes traditional and non-traditional vendors providing systems, components, software and payloads.

Replicator-related funding for the Switchblade 600, a kamikaze drone made by AeroVironment, will boost the LASSO program, the Army’s acquisition chief Doug Bush told DefenseScoop last week during a meeting with reporters.

The first tranche will also feature maritime drones including various types of unmanned surface vessels.

“In the maritime domain, the Department is diversifying the vendor base for USVs through the recently announced Production-Ready, Inexpensive, Maritime Expeditionary (PRIME) Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO). The CSO process allows U.S. and international companies to pitch technologies to the Department in a fast-track process for a prototype contract. Launched on January 30, 2024, the PRIME CSO received over one hundred applications from commercial technology companies. With FY24 funding secured, the Department is on track to award several contracts this summer,” the Pentagon said in Monday’s release.

The Defense Innovation Unit, headquartered in Silicon Valley, is spearheading the PRIME initiative.

“Meeting the strategic imperatives facing the nation requires that we harness the very best of America’s commercial technology in non-traditional partners, alongside our traditional sources of defense capabilities,” DIU Director Doug Beck said in a statement. “Replicator is doing just that, and that is why we at DIU are proud to work with our partners from across the Department of Defense to make it a reality.”

The first tranche of Replicator systems includes capabilities that remain classified, including “others in the maritime domain” and some in the counter-drone portfolio, according to the release.

“I am pleased to announce that the Department will begin investing in scalable production for these critical capabilities,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said in a statement. “We are taking an important step toward strengthening our defense and technology industrial base. And, we are demonstrating the Department’s ability to break down barriers to scaling innovation at speed not just for [all-domain attritable autonomous] systems, but in our ability to develop new capabilities and processes for the Department and key stakeholders, including Congress.”

DefenseScoop previously reported that USV systems and interceptors affiliated with a Navy Special Warfare and Office of Naval Research program were also chosen for Replicator. Anduril’s Wide-Area Infrared System for Persistent Surveillance (WISP) counter-drone technology was also tapped for ramped-up production in association with efforts put forth by the Marine Corps’ Ground Based Air Defense program.

During the background call ahead of Monday’s announcement, senior defense officials said the Pentagon is now on track to meet the goals laid out by Hicks to field thousands of Replicator-related systems by August 2025.

“We’re now poised to execute on tranche one,” one of the officials said. “We will either be awarding contracts or in some cases, contracts already exist and will be modified to accommodate investments from tranche one.”

The officials declined to provide a breakdown of how much funding would go toward each of the capabilities that have been selected.

“We have for reasons of the operational need made some classification decisions, and one of those decisions is around the quantities of specific systems. And so, we won’t be providing the funding at a system level,” an official told DefenseScoop during the call.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, the new commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, applauded the recent developments.

“This is a critical step in delivering the capabilities we need, at the scale and speed we need, to continue securing a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he said in a statement.

While securing the money needed for fiscal 2024 was a key step, there are more challenges to tackle besides buying these systems and having industry manufacture as the Pentagon prepares to field them.

“With that comes a whole lot more hard work that will need to go into making this a reality by August of 2025,” a senior DOD official said during the call with reporters. “That includes continuing to refine the concept of operation and employment for these capabilities; accelerating the experimentation timelines for individual capabilities, but also the collective portfolio to make sure that we are adequately testing and experimenting the mass effects that that we hope to achieve.”

It also includes “generating and tagging high-quality data and developing the algorithmic models to enable the safe, secure and effective degrees of autonomy for these systems; conducting policy reviews to ensure the systems are compliant with our policies and our values; you know, developing common autonomy AI architectures. So there’s just a whole lot of additional work that will continue to go into this so that we can deliver capabilities that are ready to use at the time that they’re delivered,” they added.

Looking ahead, the department has requested about $500 million for Replicator-related efforts in fiscal 2025 and said it will work with Congress to support that request.

Meanwhile, it’s currently evaluating additional capabilities for tranche two.

“I expect that that will include additional attritable systems in some of these same domains that will complement the capabilities of tranche one, and it will also will prioritize enablers such as command and control, autonomy and other software that will increase the overall effectiveness and collaboration across these systems,” a senior DOD official told DefenseScoop during the call.

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DIU is on the hunt for low-cost platforms that could go into production next year. The aim is to build 10 or more systems per month, which would be an annual production rate of 120 or more robo-boats.

“The Department of the Navy has an operational need for small Unmanned Surface Vehicle (sUSV) interceptors, capable of autonomously transiting hundreds of miles through contested waterspace, loitering in an assigned operating area while monitoring for maritime surface threats, and then sprinting to interdict a noncooperative, maneuvering vessel. Interceptors will need to operate in cohesive groups and execute complex autonomous behaviors that adapt to the dynamic, evasive movements of the pursued vessel,” according to the solicitation.

The Defense Department wants robotic systems that can sail 500-1,000 nautical miles in moderate sea states; haul a payload of 1,000 pounds using diesel fuel; loiter for “several days” while conserving sufficient fuel to return to base; and “sprint” at 35 knots or faster in low sea states.

Other primary focus areas include sense-and-avoid technology that can effectively operate in low-visibility conditions and in areas where global navigation satellite systems are denied; tech that enables maritime drones to autonomously shadow and intercept a vessel of interest; and “collaborative multi-agent autonomy solutions” that allow for the integration of third-party software and hardware.

Among other “highly desired” attributes for the robo-boats is the ability to carry and launch small unmanned aerial systems that could provide additional eyes to look for objects of interest.

To promote stealthiness, DIU is interested in uncrewed platforms that can “automatically adjust emissions control (EMCON) posture when in the vicinity of specific vessels and aircraft, or in specific geographic areas” and “search for, localize, shadow, and intercept a noncooperative, maneuvering vessel of interest using techniques and sensor modalities that minimize probability of detection,” per the solicitation.

For communications, the organization seeks systems that are resistant to radio frequency jamming and use a variety of pathways such as high-bandwidth commercial satcom, 5G and others.

It envisions machine-to-machine data links and mesh networks that enable “collaboration with proximate sUSVs and other unmanned systems, as well as for status reporting with a distant operations center or control station … with minimal track splitting or false positives,” according to the request for solutions.

The Pentagon is keen on using machine learning technologies that can recognize objects and assist with intelligence-gathering, data analysis, or targeting. The DIU solicitation noted that desired attributes for the small USVs include automated recognition tools “for classifying and identifying surface vessels of various types, to include recognition of hull shape, superstructure, masts, and hull markings such as letters and numbers.”

The department also wants robo-ships that can carry a variety “effectors,” per the solicitation. The term “effectors,” in U.S. military parlance, generally refers to weapon systems.

The Navy’s Task Force 59, which is under 5th Fleet, has been using commercial USVs and AI capabilities for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance purposes in operational environments in the Middle East region.

The unit has also been testing the ability of maritime drones to employ weapons. During an exercise in October of last year, it used an unmanned surface vessel to launch loitering munitions against a target boat.

4th Fleet, which operates in Central and South America, has also been experimenting with these types of capabilities as part of its hybrid fleet exercises.

Through the new solicitation, DIU could facilitate a major ramp-up in the Navy’s employment of maritime drones and autonomous systems.

The innovation unit, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley, works to connect the Pentagon with nontraditional contractors and commercial technologies that have military applications. It also aims to move faster than traditional Defense Department acquisition processes, via what it calls a commercial solutions opening, to get companies on contract quickly and move forward with prototyping.

“The Department intends to swiftly prototype and demonstrate one or more sUSV interceptors, aligned with robust commercial capacity to manufacture and deliver these sUSVs at scale,” the solicitation states. “After Government reviews and evaluations are complete, the Government intends to recommend specific pairing arrangements between the selected sUSV interceptor solutions and the selected collaborative multi-agent autonomy solutions.”

Proposed solutions may be expected to appear on a test range as early as 30 days after award of a prototyping agreement, for performance assessments and demonstrations of sense-and-avoid capabilities and autonomous intercept, according to the solicitation.

A follow-on production contract or transaction may be issued by one or more organizations within the Defense Department without further industry competition, it noted.

Systems need to be ready to move into high-rate production beginning in spring 2025, per the solicitation.

Responses from industry are due Feb. 12.

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The service has been developing and testing robo-ship prototypes to help the service prepare for a future “hybrid fleet” of crewed and uncrewed vessels. In recent months, it deployed several unmanned surface vessels (USVs) in the Pacific for Integrated Battle Problem 23.2 and other exercises. That effort generated data from thousands of hours of operations.

“One of our goals in prototyping is to put the vessels in as many diverse situations as we can. We want to explore … where the boundaries are, and in doing so bound the risk associated with unmanned operations,” Capt. Scot Searles, program manager for the Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office (PMS 406), said during a briefing at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium.

That includes situations where USVs need to adhere to International Regulations for Prevention of Collision at Sea, or COLREGS.

“We’ve been successful there on this deployment with over 183 COLREGS interactions across the four vessels. Over 80% of the time, the autonomy handled those encounters exactly as everyone expected. Of the remainder, about half of those were considered questionable — meaning it did it okay, it was an absolutely appropriate response to a COLREGS interaction, [but] it’s just not what we would have expected it to do. And this is important to know because when unmanned ships are operating around manned ships, it’s not just about complying with COLREGS — it’s about behaving in a way that the other manned ships expect you to behave,” he said.

Searles used a self-driving car analogy to explain the issue of unexpected behaviors at sea.

“Think about if you’re driving down the highway and the unmanned car in front of you slams on its brakes because it’s perceived something that it needs to slow down for. Well, that’s not something you would necessarily expect. And the interaction of the manned-unmanned team is super important, and so we’re interested in those encounters. So even though [the USV] behaved in a way that is compliant with the COLREGS, we want to continue to investigate that and make sure that the vessels are blending in with the manned ships around them,” he said.

Additionally, the Navy observed 14 “inappropriate interactions.”

“It’s those 14 inappropriate interactions that we’re really interested in. That’s our real learning. That’s what we’re out there for. And that’s why we’re on deployment is to find those 14 interactions where we still need to go correct the software. So for us, it’s been an extremely valuable thing,” Searles said.

For example, “we found things like the antenna was blocked … and it got into a blind spot. And so the vessel master was tracking it into the blind spot but the ship in his opinion didn’t [do something] maybe quickly enough for the contact coming out of the blind spot. There was one where rough seas were making them want to navigate on a particular heading, and as they got on the heading, they started getting more and more false contact and making the ships do more and more reactions, more and more COLREGS maneuvering” when they didn’t need to, Searles told DefenseScoop.

“Occasionally, the things we wanted it to do, like stay in this box or stay relative bearing and distance, it struggled to return to that. So that tells us OK, there’s something in that feedback loop that we need to go tweak. So that’s kind of the flavor of what those 14 were,” he added.

The Navy is gleaning important information about how the autonomy technology is handling problems like limited visibility and an inability to correlate visual tracks with radar contacts.

For example, heavy rain on a maritime drone’s perception system can make a wave or rain cloud look like a solid object that needs to be avoided. That tricks the robo-ship into unnecessary maneuvering, Searles explained.

The Navy is currently developing two optical systems to address that problem, he noted, and it plans to use artificial intelligence to help the platforms distinguish false contacts from real obstacles. The service hopes to field both of those prototypes on USVs for testing by the end of this year.

During the IBP 23.2 exercise that just wrapped up, there were 157 distinct human interventions during the robo-ships’ operations. However, 109 of those were unrelated to autonomy and were associated with off-ship command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) issues that required someone to be on the USV to troubleshoot — or other “matters of human convenience,” according to Searles.

Among the 48 “interventions of concern,” 17 were related to sensing and perception, nine were related to maneuvering decisions, 11 were related to hull mechanical and electrical systems, and the rest were due to weather or other factors.

“We’re down to about 48 human interventions of concern that we need to do something about … And that works out to be an intervention about once every 42 hours. So, [we’re] getting better but your unmanned ship still needs a human every two days now. So, still not happy with that,” he said.

The mean time between human interventions to deal with perception and autonomy-related issues is about once every four days, he noted.

The Navy continues to learn as it gains more experience deploying the USVs and putting them through their paces at sea.

“The vessels have demonstrated successful responses to many of the things that [Surface Development Squadron 1] is going to need it to do in tactical employment — pause, resume, vector, hover, loiter, station keeping, transit, towing, drift — all of those things that are important to actually tactically employ these vessels in concert with another Navy manned ship. So again, really good learning opportunities both for the acquisition program office as we try to develop the technology, test that technology, as well as the CONOPS development and the CONEMP development,” Searles said, using acronyms to refer to concept of operations and concept of employment.

“The deployment has provided data that’s gonna keep us busy for a while. We’ve got a good backlog of things to work on now. But it’s also given us a very good fix that we’re pretty happy about it on our roadmap to fielding unmanned [vessels]. We feel like we’re right where we need to be and right on the right glide slope. We’re very pleased with where it’s shown we’re at on our roadmap, and we’re looking forward to the future hybrid fleet,” he said.

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The RFI for the Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) was posted Nov. 3 on Sam.gov on behalf of the Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Office (PMS 406), under Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants, which is developing requirements for the detail design and construction of the ship.

“LUSV will support Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) and provide the Joint Force with an adjunct missile magazine capability and capacity.  Primary missions include the support of Anti-Surface Warfare (SUW) and Strike Warfare (STW),” according to the notice. “LUSV is a high-endurance, affordable asset capable of weeks-long deployments and trans-oceanic transits.  LUSV will be built to commercial American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) vice military standards. As an adjunct magazine, LUSV will operate with Carrier Strike Groups (CSG), Expeditionary Strike Groups (ESG), Surface Action Groups (SAG), and individual manned combatants.”

The Navy is putting forth a set of technical questions and asking for industry’s feedback on the ship specification draft. However, the full RFI contains controlled technical data. To view it, vendors must first request access to the “Bidder’s Library” where it’s been posted and complete a user agreement form. Contractors must also be cleared to view Department of Defense Distribution D materials.

Responses to the RFI are due Dec. 4.

The sea service has already been experimenting with robo-ship prototypes. Four USVs sailed across the Pacific Ocean this summer — mostly autonomously, with little help from humans — via the U.S. Navy’s Integrated Battle Problem 23.2 exercise, including the large-sized Mariner and Ranger and medium-sized Sea Hunter and Sea Hawk.

It has also been testing the ability of unmanned vessels to launch weapons. In 2021, the Department of Defense posted a video of a Ranger launching an SM-6 missile. Last month, the Navy’s Task Force 59 used a MARTAC T38 Devil Ray USV, equipped with a Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile System, to fire at a target boat during the Digital Talon exercise in the Middle East region.

The Navy requested $117.4 million in advanced technology development funding for the LUSV program in fiscal 2024, but Congress hasn’t yet passed a full-year appropriations bill for defense and federal agencies are operating under a continuing resolution. The service received $136.6 million in advanced technology development funding for LUSV in fiscal 2023, according to budget documents.

According to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service, the Navy envisions LUSVs as being 200 feet to 300 feet in length and having full load displacements of 1,000 tons to 2,000 tons — about the size of a corvette.

“The Navy wants LUSVs to be low-cost, high-endurance, reconfigurable ships with ample capacity for carrying various modular payloads—particularly anti-surface warfare (ASuW) and strike payloads, meaning principally anti-ship and land-attack missiles. Each LUSV could be equipped with a vertical launch system (VLS) with 16 to 32 missile-launching tubes,” per the study.

The Navy’s 2024 budget request indicated that it wants to procure the first LUSV in 2025 at a cost of $315.0 million, another two in 2026 at a combined cost of $522.5 million, three of them in 2027 at a combined cost of $722.7 million, and three more in 2028 at a combined cost of $737.2 million, according to the CRS report.

Earlier this year, then PEO for unmanned and small combatants Rear Adm. Casey Moton, said the concept of operations for these types of systems will be “fully compliant” with the Pentagon’s autonomous weapons policy, indicating that a human will be making the decision to launch weapons from a robo-ship.

“The LUSV ConOps is not intended to be [fully] autonomous. It is engage-on-remote just like we already do in our Aegis [destroyer] fleet. The only difference is the human that’s actually making the engage decision is sitting on a platform other than the USV,” he said during remarks at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium.

For last month’s weapons launch from the uncrewed MARTAC T38 Devil Ray USV during the Digital Talon exercise, the Navy noted a human operator at Task Force 59’s Robotics Operations Center ashore was in the loop and gave the green light to attack the target.

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Those four USV prototypes include the medium-sized Sea Hunter and Sea Hawk and large-sized Mariner and Ranger. They partly underpin the sea service’s campaign to experiment with maritime drones and prepare for a future where it aims to operate a hybrid fleet of manned and unmanned ships.

Earlier this summer, the four vessels departed Southern California to move largely on their own across the Pacific for the Integrated Battle Problem exercise. On their way, ahead of arriving in Yokosuka, Japan at the headquarters of U.S. 7th Fleet this week, the platforms integrated with other Navy platforms they passed, the Carl Vinson carrier strike group during Large Scale Exercise 23, and with Japan-based units including Destroyer Squadrons 7 and 15, among others.

The port visit in Yokosuka marked the first time any uncrewed U.S. Navy asset of this type has stopped in Japan, according to a release.

Cmdr. Jeremiah Daley, the USV Division 1 commander who oversaw this transit and other demos and exercises the vessels have participated in, briefed reporters about the effort during a call from Japan on Thursday evening.

“We’re using these unmanned systems in this group of ships that I have with me for sensing above, on and below the sea — with the specific intent against high-end adversaries, improving the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance for battlespace awareness in all three domains, increasing the accuracy of targeting solutions … and closing kill chains faster and keeping them closed for longer periods of time. That will play a very integral part in how we train to fight and having the ability to support the delivery of offensive fires from longer distances,” Daley said.

He also emphasized the significant role uncrewed vessels will play in future conflicts, noting their potential to add capacity to the Navy’s fleet while mitigating personnel requirements and keeping sailors out of harm’s way.

“We have a finite number of manned surface combatants. We have the ability to build so many so quickly because of their size and scope — and manning a destroyer with 330 qualified sailors is also not an easy task to do. The ability to turn one surface action group of three destroyers, add a certain number of USVs and convert them into three surface action groups covering three, or four, or five times as much water space with the same number of manned service combatants is a game-changer,” Daley told DefenseScoop during the call.

Through the Navy’s Integrated Battle Problem 23.2 exercise, Daley and his team sought to validate concepts of operation for transits across short and very long oceanic distances — and for conducting command and control of the prototypes from an operations center ashore, as well as a variety of afloat units.

However, he declined to share much details about the uncrewed vessels’ payloads.

“We’re continuing to refine the autonomy, but for a significant portion of the transit we were in autonomy going across the Pacific Ocean without human intervention — or as far as having the need to intervene,” the commander told reporters during the call.

In every port visit and region they operated in, the team attempted to integrate as many facets of the fleet as possible. 

Daley noted that, broadly, USV Division 1 is “learning a significant amount from what would be required when the Navy does start to project further and scale these vessels into a program of record.”

Though he would not disclose any information about future operations, Daley said the division “will continue to exercise our capabilities with a host of units.”

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