Over the past two decades, the military roles and contributions of unmanned
vehicles have grown dramatically, and this trend appears likely to continue.
However, unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) maritime vehicles uninhabited by personnel
that maintain continuous, substantial contact with the surface have received less attention and
investment than unmanned vehicles that operate in the air, on the ground, or under the sea.
But in recent years, unmanned surface vehicles have become increasingly
important for military operations. Hello and welcome to another episode of
The Military TV. Our discussion today provides a brief overview of existing Unmanned Surface
vehicle (USV) programs and their expected capabilities in the near-term in the U.S Navy.
After a bruising, year-long fight with Congress, part of the Navy’s plan to field unmanned ships
appears to be on life support, making 2021 a crucial year for plotting a path forward.
Therefore, U.S. military leaders are getting serious about developing unmanned surface vessels
for jobs like the global transport of military cargo, moving troops and support personnel,
anti-submarine warfare, maritime surveillance, and even offensive operations against enemy ships.
On September 17th, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said “Unmanned will enable us to grow
the United States Navy well beyond 355 ships. It will add more lethality, survivability,
capability, et cetera, to the United States Navy and indeed to the joint force. So, we’re
making all those investments; the research and development budget that we had [this fiscal year]
is the largest in history. We’re very excited about that. We have to invest in the future.”
Before moving on to how they could fit into the current fleet structure and how
concerns surrounding command and control will affect different potential mission sets. While
unmanned undersea vessels will also bring important changes, they are beyond the scope
of our discussion today which focuses only on USVs. While USVs have the potential to change
the Navy, fleet structures cannot simply be replaced but will instead evolve over time.
Rather than dream of a hypothetical new fleet structure we must understand
how USVs will fit into the existing one. So, we will discuss it more in 3 important parts.
1. Current Program The Navy has already
created several platforms for testing and integrating autonomous USVs. The Ghost Fleet
Overload program has completed its first phase, conducting 600 hours of autonomous navigation with
two converted commercial ships, and its second phase is currently testing C2 integration and
payload systems. Additionally, two “Sea Hunter” autonomous ships are undergoing testing with
the Navy’s Surface Development Squadron 1. These ships, initially developed by DARPA,
are capable of continuously shadowing enemy submarines. And while not autonomous,
small remote-controlled USVs are already in use as supporting vessels for the littoral
combat ships, carrying out scouting, countermine, anti-submarine, and electronic warfare missions.
For future procurement, the Navy has designated two acquisition programs: Large Unmanned Surface
Vehicles (LUSVs) and Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicles (MUSVs). MUSVs would be 45 feet to
190 feet long and tasked with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance payloads and
electronic warfare missions. LUSVs would be 200 feet to 300 feet in length and be more offensive
in nature, armed with anti-ship and land-attack missiles. The Navy’s desire to employ these
accelerated acquisition strategies can be viewed as an expression of the urgency that the Navy
attaches to fielding large UVs for meeting future military challenges from countries such as China.
Both programs are designed to be crew-optional, allowing for a small crew to remain on-board
for missions where more hands-on oversight or decision-making might be needed. It also allows
for a kind of “overlap” period where a human presence is maintained while technical and
ethical issues surrounding command and control are worked out. This is by no means an exhaustive list
of prototypes and programs, but should demonstrate the kinds of technical capabilities the Navy
expects USVs to have in the near future. 2. Command and Control
What would command and control look like and how does that affect the potential uses of USVs?
To receive instructions, every system will need at least one of the following command and control
systems, or some combination of them. Autonomous control allows for maximum decentralization,
expendability, freedom of design, and minimal operational costs. It also does not require
any outside connection to operate which may be unavailable or undesirable in an
electromagnetic contested environment. However, while AI systems are improving rapidly they are
still a work-in progress and their ability to react to more complex situations may be limited.
Furthermore, Remote control allows for many of the benefits of autonomous control, but with
humans in-the-loop on the other end of a network connection. This system of control is already in
wide use with unmanned aerial vehicles such as the MQ-9. Ethical concerns remain that remote control
systems desensitize operators to violence and lead to unnecessary collateral damage,
though as it stands now, this existing use case provides a strong precedent for how remote control
might be used at sea. However, remote control requires a dependable, robust connection which
may not be available in an Electromagnetic contested environment where communication
signals could be jammed or could give away the location of the ship. In this situation, the
system would either need to revert to autonomous controls or simply become a floating husk.
Human sailors can operate Electromagnetic-independently without
sacrificing system oversight. In the context of USVs, this would mean ships which perform most
tasks themselves but retain a tiny crew to perform key command, control, and oversight tasks. In some
ways this is the best of both worlds, however such “crew-optional” or “lightly manned” ships still
severely limit some of the potential gains from USVs. One of the benefits of USVs is that they are
more easily risked in dangerous environments, but the minute you put a single human sailor aboard
that risk tolerance understandably plummets. Additionally, the need to house humans constrains
ship design choices and operations, putting limits on just how small, streamlined, and decentralized
the systems could reasonably be. This set of options and trade-offs will affect each potential
role differently. Due to the diversity of mission sets/requirements, a one-size-fits-all approach
to new command and control systems will not sufficiently meet the needs of the future Navy.
3. Potential Roles How and where both
unmanned and autonomous capabilities will be used is a much more open ended question. When dealing
with new technologies there is no roadmap and predictions on how novel capabilities will be
implemented can easily become lost in speculation. But to determine how USVs will be used initially,
it is helpful to fit them into an existing framework of naval operations. One of the most
authoritative books on the subject of modern naval tactics is Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations by
Capt. John Hughes. In it, Hughes lays out four categories of naval forces: Battle fleets,
cruisers, amphibious forces, and flotillas. At the end of this video, we conclude that
with or without lethal autonomy, USVs of all shapes, sizes, roles,
and control systems will soon be making a large impact on the world’s navies. As with many
emerging technologies the potential ramifications of unmanned systems can seem overwhelming, almost
limitless. Imagining the myriad possibilities can be both useful and entertaining, but it’s
important to remember that these systems will come into being over time. And as they do, they
will work themselves into the existing structures and frameworks. Evaluating USVs in this light can
help us to bring semblance of order to the chaos that often accompanies rapid technological change.