US Navy set to deploy underwater drones in the South China Sea

[F-22Raptor]

The Pentagon's once-secret submarine drones programme is being discussed in the open, with US defence secretary Ashton Carter hinting at their potential use in the disputed South China Sea.

Surveillance is the initial function of these unmanned, undersea vehicles, which can operate in shallow water 'where manned submarines cannot'.

There are also plans to create a 'Russian doll' or 'mother' sub, which could release a number of far smaller drones to be mines, trackers or missile launchers, reports the Financial Times.

The US military hopes the drone development would deter China from dominating the South China Sea.

The countries of the South China Sea have long claimed rights to disputed international waters, but as its economic strength has grown, an increasingly confident China has built military bases on artificial islands and militarized one of the disputed Paracel Islands.

The US has sent ships through the disputed waters to reaffirm the country's international status, including missile destroyer the USS Curtis Wilbur, and the USS John S Stennis.

Mr Carter made special mention of drone subs in his speech about military strategy in Asia.

The main obstacles in terms of development of the drone subs is making sure they have enough power to stay underwater for long periods of time.

By investing in the drone subs, the Pentagon is attempted to keep one step ahead of military rivals such as China and Russia.

Shawn Brimley, a former White House and Pentagon official now at the Center for a New American Security, said: 'The idea is that if we were ever to get into a bust-up in the South China Sea, the Chinese would not know for sure what sort of capabilities the US might have.'

He added: 'The use of undersea drones opens up a whole new area of capabilities.'

Last month, the US Navy has begun testing a radical 'drone boat' that will automatically scour the seas for enemy submarines for months at a time.

The Navy hopes the 'sea hunter' will end the growing threat of quiet, diesel powered enemy submarines entering American waters undetected.

On March 31 they revealed footage of the 132 foot long ship, officially named 'The Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel' in its first high speed tests.

The ACTUV technology demonstration vessel was tested in Portland.

It reached a top speed of 27 knots (31 mph/50 kph).

Darpa director Dr. Arati Prabhakar and deputy director Dr. Steve Walker revealed the craft earlier this year.

'Imagine an unmanned surface vessel following all the laws of the sea on its own,' Walker told media, 'and operating with manned surface and unmanned underwater vehicles.'

The robot boats will go to sea for up to three months at a time.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nes-launch-missiles-counter-China-threat.html

 

[Hurshid Celebi]

The Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) is developing an unmanned vessel optimized to robustly track quiet diesel electric submarines. The program is structured around three primary goals:

• Explore the performance potential of a surface platform conceived from concept to field demonstration under the premise that a human is never intended to step aboard at any point in its operating cycle. As a result, a new design paradigm emerges with reduced constraints on conventional naval architecture elements such as layout, accessibility, crew support systems, and reserve buoyancy. The objective is to generate a vessel design that exceeds state-of-the art platform performance to provide propulsive overmatch against diesel electric submarines at a fraction of their size and cost.
• Advance unmanned maritime system autonomy to enable independently deploying systems capable of missions spanning thousands of kilometers of range and months of endurance under a sparse remote supervisory control model. This includes autonomous compliance with maritime laws and conventions for safe navigation, autonomous system management for operational reliability, and autonomous interactions with an intelligent adversary.
• Demonstrate the capability of the ACTUV system to use its unique characteristics to employ non-conventional sensor technologies that achieve robust continuous track of the quietest submarine targets over their entire operating envelope.

While the ACTUV program is focused on demonstrating the ASW tracking capability in this configuration, the core platform and autonomy technologies are broadly extendable to underpin a wide range of missions and configurations for future unmanned naval vessels.


http://www.darpa.mil/program/anti-submarine-warfare-continuous-trail-unmanned-vessel