Robot submarines could soon be spying on enemies of US
MORE than a decade after airborne drones took flight over battlefields, the world’s biggest defence manufacturers are eyeing a new market below the ocean’s surface.
The US Navy recently opened up a competition for unmanned submarines that can navigate autonomously. Chicago-based Boeing has taken an early lead in the fledgling market: The company has developed a 51foot-long vessel called the Echo Voyager to compete for the contract, and last year it bought a company called Liquid Robotics that focuses on smaller unmanned subs.
Bethesda, Maryland-based competitor Lockheed Martin is also competing for the contract, a company spokeswoman has indicated, and it, too, is now ramping up its efforts by investing in another company specialising in the autonomous watercraft.
The company’s technology investment unit, Lockheed Martin Ventures is backing a San Diegobased company called Ocean Aero, which makes various classes of seafaring drones, termed unmanned underwater vehicles, or UUVs. The size and terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The venture unit typically makes investments of US$1 million to US$5 million.
“This just speaks to how big the unmanned systems market has become, that you have Boeing and Lockheed going at this full speed,” Ocean Aero Chief Executive Eric Patten said.
Ocean Aero makes a 13-footlong, battery-powered submarine called the Submaran S10. The S10 can loiter on the surface or dive to a relatively shallow 30 feet. It can navigate autonomously based on preprogrammed waypoints and outfitted to scout for and hide from threats completely on its own. It can recharge its battery on the surface using tiny solar panels or raise a sail to harness the wind for propulsion, which the manufacturer calls “energy scavenging.” The S10 has already been sold to two undisclosed customers.
The company plans to introduce a larger model called the S200 next year that can travel faster and dive deeper. It is about to start testing a 39-foot-long model it calls the Silent Arrow that aims to dive to about 650 feet and navigate with the help of an electronic thruster.
Patten says the Silent Arrow sub positions the company for future Navy competitions.
“When the competition started in January we weren’t in a position to compete,” he said. “Now we’re in a position to compete for that.”
Ocean Aero is part of a nascent yet crowded field of start-ups that has emerged in tandem with smaller, more fail-safe lithium-ion batteries.
The industry is responding to a new school of thought in the upper echelons of the US military. Agencies are looking to use advances in robotics and artificial intelligence as “force multipliers,” with the idea that combat-capable robots will augment but not replace humans in the wars of the future. — Washington Post
This just speaks to how big the unmanned systems market has become, that you have Boeing and Lockheed going at this full speed. – Eric Patten, Ocean Aero Chief Executive