A submarine isn’t the first mode of transportation that comes to mind when we think of an unmanned vehicle, but the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s newest drone is almost ready to cruise the California coast. The 130-foot, 140-ton unmanned naval ship dubbed the ‘Submarine Hunter’ will be officially christened April 7 and DARPA is already conducting preliminary tests near the drone’s construction site in Portland, Oregon. The stealth submarine hit a top speed of 31 mph.
“The “Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, ” ACTUV for short, can track and deter foreign stealth submarines for months at a time with no crew aboard. “This would track adversaries’ ultra-quiet diesel-electric submarines over thousands of miles at a fraction of current costs,” according to DARPA’s report.
The ATCUV’s engineering team, Leidos, names ‘an underwater arms race’ as one of the reasons for development. Its report claims, “Russia has been selling diesel-electric subs to buoy its shipyards, triggering what some are calling an undersea arms race.”
Leidos also reports Algeria has ordered two, Venezuela is expecting five, and Indonesia will have six subs by 2020. Iran claims to have a fleet of 17 diesel-electric subs.
This prototype is the first in what DARPA hopes to become a fleet of drone ships that will also assist other U.S. Naval ships by running logistics for operations and deliver supplies. Extensive open water testing will begin along the coast of California this Summer.
