ABSTRACT
The use of marine unmanned vehicles (MUVs) has grown exponentially in the 21st century in terms of both the number of maritime systems being employed by the world’s navies, as well as the complexity of the missions they are designed to accomplish. This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future as unmanned systems have demonstrated their ability to “enhance situational awareness, reduce human workload, improve mission performance, and minimize overall risk to both civilian and military personnel, and all at a reduced cost.” 1 US Department of Defense (DoD) funding for unmanned systems across all domains, for example, increased to $9.6 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, 2 an increase of over $2.1 billion from FY2018. Of this total, $1.3 billion has been earmarked for MUVs. 3 The pervasiveness and uses of unmanned systems continue to expand as new technologies have increased system persistence, stealth, mobility, versatility, and survivability. Moreover, because they reduce risk to human life, unmanned systems are becoming the preferred alternative for dull, dirty, or dangerous missions. In this regard, the DoD Integrated Roadmap states that unmanned systems:
provide an ideal platform to conduct dull missions that “involve long-duration undertakings with mundane tasks that are ill suited for manned systems,” such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions 4 ;
can better perform dirty missions, such as operations to detect chemical, biological, and nuclear material, by significantly reducing the risk of exposure of personnel to hazardous conditions; and
particularly autonomous systems can be used to conduct missions that are inherently dangerous—such as mine clearing operations, deactivating improvised explosive devices—to reduce the risk exposure to personnel.
