When talking about the latest advances in unmanned vehicle technology we often imagine an aerial representation, such as the new Northrop Grumman X-47B, but a great deal of research is going into unmanned undersea vehicles. One such program seeks to develop a Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, or LDUUV, and the U.S. Navy has already tested an unmanned submarine that can maintain surveillance of key stretches of water.
One device in development, called “Sea Maverick”, was designed by the Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. Tests of the prototype have been conducted near Key West by the Joint Interagency Task Force South, an interagency task force that is focused on the detection and monitoring of suspected air and maritime counter illicit activity, with very promising results.
Sea Maverick Testing in Key West Florida - Photo credit - U.S. Southern Command
The Sea Maverick, with a reported price tag of $5 million, runs on batteries, providing the dual benefit of relatively silent operation and reduced environmental impact as a result of eliminating exhaust gas emissions. At 30 feet in length, and just 4 feet in diameter with twin conning towers, the vessel was tethered to a support ship during initial tests while communicating via its onboard WiFi network.
The LDUUV is a pier-launched and recovered UUV (without the need for ship-launch or recovery) with the capability to transit in the open ocean and conduct over-the-horizon missions in littoral waters.
What are the long term goals of the project? LDUUVs are designed to operate in a semi-autonomous fashion, similar to the unmanned drones now used by the military in the Middle East, and while current plans do not include an armed version, the device will be capable of housing a wide range of cameras and surveillance equipment. We’ve previously written about the advantages of persistent surveillance monitoring from the air, and the advent of LDUUVs will bring a similar capability to the world’s oceans.
Uses for the Sea Maverick, and similar systems, are wide ranging, from ongoing military operations to homeland security and drug smuggling interdiction. Such devices can be controlled via nearby ships, as well as from remote command & control centers, enhancing their versatility and effectiveness.
Trenton will continue to monitor progress in the development of unmanned undersea vehicles as our systems engineering approach to designing military-grade computing systems supports applications involving tactical and/or surveillance needs within the government & defense industry.
