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Alone and [ UNMANNED TECHNOLOGIES ]

Unafraid

USV TECHNOLOGIES ARE PROCEEDING AT A Charting a New Path
RAPID PACE The U.S. Navy has been early adopter of the
USV concept and is considerably advanced
on many of the key technologies involved. It
Atul Chandra is undertaking work on Unmanned maritime
systems with regards to Surface Warfare,
Expeditionary Warfare and Undersea Warfare.
Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) are expected to be in wide- Under the Unmanned Surface Warfare cate-
spread use before the end of the decade as the technologies gory, it will develop prototypes for a Large
involved for their safe use in congested sea lanes and on the open USV (LUSV) and Medium USV (MUSV). In the
ocean attain maturity. Unmanned systems when integrated with Unmanned Expeditionary Warfare category,
manned platforms will provide militaries with an unprecedented it is developing a Mine Counter Measure USV
advantage in any future confrontation. However, the complexity of (MCM USV) and Mine Hunting USV, in addi-
combat systems and the multiplicity of sensors and interfaces that tion to the Knifefish. The Snakehead Large
need to be integrated on military unmanned systems, requires a Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle
high level of specific expertise, which can only be achieved through (LDUUV), Extra Large Unmanned Undersea
thorough technical knowledge of operational issues and the prac- Vehicle (XLUUV) and Razorback are being
tical experience derived from naval missions.

As a result, many nations are already deeply invested in develop-
ing USVs for a variety of maritime roles and global OEMs are now
offering increasingly sophisticated solutions for unmanned plat-
forms. However, in many respects USV and Unmanned Underwater
Vehicle (UUV) technologies are yet nascent and complex techno-
logical challenges related to endurance, autonomy and precision
navigation, command, control and communications, payloads and
sensors, as also platform integration for launch and recovery need
to be overcome.

ASIAN DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY March/April 2020 | 9