Navy Tests Ocean Drones

[RenaissanceLady]

On the remote chance you were lying awake wishing there was a way to conduct undersea warfare using technology that's difficult to control, thereby risking not only delicate sea life but also any manned ships in the area, you'll be delighted to learn that such tests are going on specifically in an area that is full of commercial traffic and right off the coast of Rhode Island.

NEWPORT, R.I. — Just beneath the placid, sailboat-dotted surface of Narragansett Bay, torpedo-shaped vehicles spin and pivot to their own rhythm, carrying out missions programmed by their U.S. Navy masters.

The bay known as a playground for the rich is the testing ground for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, where the Navy is working toward its goal of achieving a squadron of self-driven, undersea vehicles.

One of the gadgets recently navigated its own way from Woods Hole, Mass., to Newport, completing several preset tasks in what the military calls an unprecedented feat.

Technology under consideration by the military is often tested aboard cylinder-shaped vehicles with a diameter of about 20 inches. But the center also tests its own prototypes, including one dubbed Razor, which can propel itself by using flippers, like a turtle, for stealth.

The Navy hopes its drones will eventually pilot themselves across oceans. The vehicles are already used to detect mines and map the ocean floor and, with tweaks over the next several years, the military says they will be applied more to intelligence gathering and, in the more distant future, anti-submarine warfare.

“We do see these autonomous undersea vehicles as game changers,” said Christopher Egan, a program manager at NUWC.

Compared with aerial drones, the undersea vehicles can be challenging to control from a distance. The water distorts the transmission of signals, and the drones have to contend with boat traffic, swirling currents and obstacles on the ocean floor.

They are typically powered by batteries, but their endurance has been sharply limited by the lack of a stronger power source that will allow for safe handling by sailors who deploy and collect the devices aboard submarines.

(snip)

In a time of tight federal budgets, the Navy also sees drones as a cost-effective way to extend the reach of its submarine fleet, which has been gradually shrinking in size since the end of the Cold War.

Norman Friedman, a New York-based naval analyst, said the unmanned undersea vehicles – or UUVs – are a necessary investment. Whether they deliver on their promise, he said, will depend on success at finding the right power plant.

“The big obstacle is going to be energy,” he said. “I don’t get the feeling anyone has jumped up and said this is not a problem anymore.”

The bay is the perfect testing environment, with shallow water, varied features on the bottom and commercial traffic, Egan said. At times, however, the engineers have to contend with interference from pleasure boaters, including one man who was approached by a Navy vessel after trying to grab a vehicle near the surface.

“We’ve had occasional interactions where a boat operator sees an opportunity to maybe snap up a cool device,” Egan said. “We’ve had to deter them on occasion.”

Weird news of the day - Salon.com

I love the part where Friedman says that the bay is a perfect testing environment because of all the commercial traffic. With a machine that is recognized as being hard to control, I wonder how many civilian boats and sailors they're willing to put at risk? For that matter, I wonder how they "deter" boat workers who are understandably curious about what they are now seeing in the water?

While the Navy is saying this is "cost effective" and a "game changer", I suspect that if federal budgets get too tight, a shiny new enemy will magically appear that will warrant full funding for this war toy, whether or not it has the power or is controllable enough to be truly effective in doing much of anything. As we have aerial drones being used in this country with even more being considered for greater and broader tasks, I wonder what "intelligence gathering" will occur that focuses on domestic "threats"?

Any thoughts?

 

[Randall]

I wonder if any will be mistaken for USOs?