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“The Lockheed Martin team brings together nearly 200 years of opened up the design space to novel ship con-
combined experience in shipbuilding, integration, automation and figurations and capabilities that could never be
autonomy,” said Joe DePietro, Lockheed Martin vice president and considered for crewed vessels.
general manager of Small Combatants and Ship Systems. “Our team
is energized by and focused on delivering the Navy what they’ve NOMARS is also pushing the boundaries on ship
asked for – a design for an affordable, low-risk ship capable of bring- reliability. Because there is no crew on board to
ing the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) vision to life.” perform maintenance, NOMARS required new
approaches for power generation, propulsion,
The Lockheed Martin team’s design uses a proven commercial ship machinery line-up, and control schemes to
that will be augmented with automation, autonomy and cyberse- ensure continuous functionality throughout a
curity elements to house a payload. The design leverages Lockheed long mission in all weather, temperature, and
Martin’s autonomy and automation experience, including its plat- sea states. “NOMARS plans to demonstrate a
form-agnostic Sikorsky MATRIX technology that’s been used to fly next-generation completely unmanned ship
a helicopter from a wireless tablet, and its AXIS control technology, that will enable entirely new concepts of oper-
used on more than half of U.S. Navy surface ships to manage engi- ations,” said Gregory Avicola, program manager
neering and machinery controls. in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. “We will
enable methods of deploying and maintaining
The Navy’s vision for USVs will enable the fleet to fight as a distrib- very large fleets of unmanned surface vessels
uted, networked and more lethal force. USVs will provide extended that can serve as partners, across the globe, for
presence across the globe with reduced risk to sailors and increased the larger crewed combatants of the U.S. Navy.”
obstacles and complications for adversaries.
In Phase 1, Serco developed a new Design Space
DARPA AND NOMARS Exploration (DSX) toolset that can evaluate
spaces with a variety of parameters and out-

Meanwhile, DARPA is moving into Phase 2 of the No Manning Required puts millions of ship designs to meet a diverse
Ship (NOMARS) program, which seeks to build and demonstrate a set of performance objectives and constraints.
revolutionary new MUSV that can go to sea and perform missions Serco used their DSX tool to create a set of ship
with unprecedented reliability and availability, while carrying a sig- designs ranging from 170-270 metric tons, then
nificant payload. The agency selected Serco Inc.’s design to move refined those into a single ship for the prelimi-
forward at the conclusion of Phase 1. NOMARS took a clean-sheet nary design review, which the company dubbed
approach to ship design, holding firmly to the requirement that there Defiant.
will never be a human on board the vessel while it is at sea – includ-
ing during underway replenishment (UNREP) events. By eliminating In Phase 2, Serco will finalize ship design, build
all constraints and requirements associated with humans, NOMARS the ship, and work through a series of rigorous

© Elbit Systems Galina-Kantorr
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