Navy Accelerates AI-Enabled, Autonomous Drones

Video Above: US Sends Drone Boats to Ukraine

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The US Navy is massively accelerating what could easily be called a drone explosion by developing, testing and integrating a growing range of surface and undersea unmanned systems designed to increasingly network with one another and operate at various levels of autonomy.

Surface and Undersea Unmanned Systems

Some systems have already been delivered to the Navy, and others are rapidly evolving prototypes now undergoing refinement, testing and rapid integration across the fleet.

“We want to start getting some of these things in production, right? We want to start transitioning prototypes into programs of record,” Capt. Scot Searles, Unmanned Maritime Systems Program Manager, told an audience at the 2022 Sea Air Space Symposium.

The rapid integration of new unmanned platforms being developed by Searles and his team are designed to closely and fully align with the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations strategy. 

The DMO, in development for several years now, is intended to help the future force excel in a changing threat environment by being more dispersed, better networked and capable of long-range surveillance and attack. Searles explained that virtually every Navy strategy document articulates the crucial need for manned unmanned teaming development.