Navy “Hybrid” Future Fleet to be 40-Percent Drones

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington DC) The Navy’s fast-emerging vision for a “Hybrid” fleet with 40-percent of the force unmanned is surging into reality as the service builds, tests and matures new prototype surface, air and undersea drones.

Drone Explosion

It could easily be called a “drone explosion,” as it has been something underway for many years now, and the effort gains new traction and milestone breakthroughs regularly. 

The Chief of Naval Operations Adm. MIchael Gilday’s vision of a “hybrid” fleet has been taking shape for several years now as something prioritizing rapid development of increasingly autonomous networked unmanned systems, yet with a clear and decisive premium being placed on manned-unmanned teaming.

Despite the pace at which AI-enabled autonomy is growing, the Navy is clear that humans need to remain in a command and control capacity to, among other things, make decisions about lethal force. That being said, unmanned systems are increasingly able to perform a wider range of functions independently, respond to new information quickly and network time-sensitive detail across a fleet of unmanned systems.

Video Above: Capt. Scot Searles, Program Manager, Unmanned Maritime Systems, Naval Sea Systems Command

Multi-Domain Focus

Navy unmanned systems developers described the scope and multi-domain focus of this effort earlier this year at the Surface Navy Association.