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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday February 07 2018, @09:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the but-does-it-know-the-rules? dept.

Let's use Darpa's fact sheet as our main source - https://www.darpa.mil/program/anti-submarine-warfare-continuous-trail-unmanned-vessel

The Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) is developing an unmanned vessel optimized to robustly track quiet diesel electric submarines. The program is structured around three primary goals:

        Explore the performance potential of a surface platform conceived from concept to field demonstration under the premise that a human is never intended to step aboard at any point in its operating cycle. As a result, a new design paradigm emerges with reduced constraints on conventional naval architecture elements such as layout, accessibility, crew support systems, and reserve buoyancy. The objective is to generate a vessel design that exceeds state-of-the art platform performance to provide propulsive overmatch against diesel electric submarines at a fraction of their size and cost.
        Advance unmanned maritime system autonomy to enable independently deploying systems capable of missions spanning thousands of kilometers of range and months of endurance under a sparse remote supervisory control model. This includes autonomous compliance with maritime laws and conventions for safe navigation, autonomous system management for operational reliability, and autonomous interactions with an intelligent adversary.
        Demonstrate the capability of the ACTUV system to use its unique characteristics to employ non-conventional sensor technologies that achieve robust continuous track of the quietest submarine targets over their entire operating envelope.

While the ACTUV program is focused on demonstrating the ASW tracking capability in this configuration, the core platform and autonomy technologies are broadly extendable to underpin a wide range of missions and configurations for future unmanned naval vessels.

Several photos here, including a single shot of an interior passageway - http://www.businessinsider.com/sea-hunter-us-navy-actuv-darpa-2018-2/#it-can-also-operate-by-itself-over-a-long-distance-without-refueling-this-vessel-can-go-from-california-to-hawaii-and-back-dejaco-said-12

Arguably, the best write up here - https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/darpa-officially-christens-the-actuv-in-portland/

Official DARPA video on Youtube - https://youtu.be/gvzmxZkAbUM

At the time of submission, wikipedia hasn't been updated to reflect the transfer of the ship from DARPA to the Navy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Hunter


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:46AM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:46AM (#634616) Journal

    Or is sunk on the high seas as a hazard to navigation, or seized under maritime salvage laws?

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