The Navy is now increasingly funding robotic ships and undersea drones to complement the work done by its crewed vessels.
The U.S. naval fleet of the future may one day include submarines without a sailor from bow to stern that prowl the depths of the ocean, navigating mine-infested waters to gather intelligence or even clandestinely drop explosives.
“What it shows is that the Navy is willing to start putting some real money behind the acquisition of unmanned undersea vehicles,” said Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank in Washington, D.C. “This is the first time the Navy has put significant money down on UUV [unmanned underwater vehicles] that have a military, war-fighting capability.”
For one, water is a much thicker medium, which makes real-time communication much more difficult than sending transmissions through air, said Rosa Zheng, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Lehigh University. That means the drone would have to handle changing weather conditions or avoid obstacles underwater without human assistance. It would also need to resurface to send faster transmissions and gain access to GPS.
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