Drone Ship Gets More Autonomous and Offensive Capabilities

[c-dome1]

Drone Ship Gets More Autonomous and Offensive Capabilities

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Feb 2, 2017
This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

The US Navy is expanding the capabilities of its emerging submarine hunting drone ship so that it can conduct surface warfare missions, fire weapons and launch electronic attacks.

The Navy wants to rapidly migrate the system from something that is tele-operated to something that can increasingly perform a wider range of functions without needing human intervention.

The Sea Hunter, a project of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), formerly known as ACTUV, can be controlled by a human operator able to maneuver the ship with a joystick. However, the progress of the platform’s technology and the rapid advancements of algorithms enabling greater levels of autonomy, have inspired the Navy to begin thinking about additional missions for a drone that was initially conceived as a purely sub hunting vessel.

According to defensesystems.com, the ship is built to travel up to 10,000 miles while using sonar and other sensors to locate mines and even the quietest enemy submarines.

The Sea Hunter’s high-frequency sonar can send acoustic “pings” into the ocean before analyzing the return signal to determine the shape, size, speed and characteristics of any undersea enemy activity.

The drone uses advanced hydro acoustics, pattern recognition and algorithms for unmanned navigation to locate and shadow diesel electric enemy submarines.

The plan is to track them, if necessary, over a period of months so they are compelled to stay away from strategically vital areas.

We are not yet at the point where we don’t have an operator supervising it, but future plans with the Sea Hunter call for replacing a turret on top of the drone with a range of sensors for ISR, surface-oriented technologies, weapons and electronic warfare systems, said Capt. Jon Rucker, program manager at the Surface Naval Association.

If the Sea Hunter is both more autonomous and armed with lethal weapons in the future, it will be engineered to align with current Pentagon doctrine which says any use of lethal force must hinge upon a human decision maker in the role of command and control.

The Pentagon’s research arm is also extending testing of its sub-hunting drone able to travel autonomously for up to 90 days using sensors and sonar technology to search for enemy submarines and other airborne and undersea threats such as mines.
http://i-hls.com/2017/02/drone-ship-gets-autonomous-offensive-capabilities/

 

[Penguin]

If future plans with the Sea Hunter call for replacing a turret on top of the drone [ = the mast and/or deckhouse ? ] with a range of sensors for ISR, surface-oriented technologies, weapons and electronic warfare systems, then what [US} systems could those be? Your speculations welcomed.

Design: trimaran (a central hull with two outriggers)
Displacement: 135 tons (standard, including 40 tons of fuel, adequate for a 70-day cruise), 145 tons (full load)
Length o.a.: 132 ft (40 m)
Propulsion: Diesel, twin screw
Speed: 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph)
Range: 10,000 nautical miles (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) at 12 knots
Endurance: 70-days, operational through Sea State 5, survivable through Sea State 7

 

[f444ran]

Does it have current or planned anti air capability?

 

[Penguin]

Does it have current or planned anti air capability?

From the looks of it, no. But when following submarines, I presume it will mainly be operating in open ocean, and will likely not be emitting. So, assuming it can be found, one can wonder how badly it needs an anti-air capability in the first place for this mission as there aren't that many countries with air forces that can reach out that far, or have carrier based aviation.

Example: