COVER STORY
WIDESPREAD INTEGRATION U.S. NAVY’S NEW ROADMAP SEES VAST POTENTIAL FOR UNMANNED SYSTEMS By Rich Tuttle
The U.S. Navy sees vast potential for unmanned systems and the capabilities they will bring, according to the service’s Strategic Roadmap for Unmanned Systems. Use of unmanned and autonomous systems will create nothing less than “fundamental shifts” in the way the Navy operates, says an unclassified summary of the roadmap released in May. Their integration, it says, will allow reductions in manpower and risk to personnel, lower operating costs, increased persistence, faster and more accurate data processing, and a faster decision cycle. The systems “will become a powerful and ubiquitous force multiplier in an integrated human-machine team,” which “will provide capabilities that far exceed the effectiveness of platforms or humans alone,” the roadmap says. These teams and technologies “will transform modern warfare, increasing asymmetric operations, leveraging the technologies to the [Navy’s] advantage, and give the warfighter the edge to win the fight.” The roadmap sees unmanned systems in the air, on the surface and under the sea, and on shore “as a rapidly adaptable and interconnected network” that will allow “access to areas denied to manned platforms,” all while providing better situational awareness. It directs the Navy to evolve a concept of operations for unmanned systems “that is platform agnostic and [will work] in highly complex contested environments with minimal operator interaction.”
THE U.S. NAVY SEES VAST POTENTIAL FOR UNMANNED SYSTEMS AND THE CAPABILITIES THEY WILL BRING, ACCORDING TO THE SERVICE’S STRATEGIC ROADMAP FOR UNMANNED SYSTEMS, BUT CHALLENGES REMAIN, FROM BUDGET ISSUES TO OPERATOR TRUST.
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A Mk. 18 Mod 2 unmanned underwater vehicle is launched from a rigid-hull inflatable boat in demonstration of U.S./U.K. mine detection capabilities. All photos: U.S. Navy
Objectives The roadmap lists six objectives: • Define and prioritize the capabilities needed to maintain warfighting superiority • Be technically capable of fielding and sustaining unmanned systems at will • Enable rapid development, demonstration and fielding of unmanned systems • Influence policy and law regarding use
of weaponized unmanned systems • Promote operator trust to achieve manned-unmanned teaming • Promote national public acceptance of the use of unmanned systems. However, a number of significant barriers stand in the way. Among them, the roadmap says, are “policy, operator trust, doctrine, force structure, acquisition, and technology development.” It says
the classified version, available only to U.S. government agencies and their contractors, describes 30 such barriers. Asked if the objectives can all be achieved, a Navy official said, “The roadmap has broad support from stakeholders across the Navy and Marine Corps to drive the department towards achieving the noted six objectives.
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“We are confident the roadmap and these objectives will influence the actions of all our stakeholders to accelerate the efficient development, fielding and full integration of Department of Navy unmanned systems into Naval operations,” Ryan Fitzgerald, director of Unmanned Systems, Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Test and Engineering, said in an email. Asked what would happen if the objectives are not achieved, she says, “the roadmap is a living document. In order to keep pace with the threat and technology, adjustments will be made as we work towards achieving them.” Congress, meanwhile, “is supportive of the Navy’s integration of unmanned systems into every aspect of Naval operations,” she says.
Organizational changes The office that put the roadmap together, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Unmanned Systems, was established three years ago but disbanded under an April 30, 2018, memo from James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. He took the action because the team had met and even exceeded its goals, Geurts said in a May 24 interview with United States Naval Institute News. He approved the team’s work on March 11. “We’ve delivered design principles, we’ve delivered how we would integrate it into warfare, we’ve delivered how we can support warfare, and ... now we’re into executing programs in all media, under water, on the water, in the air for both the Navy and the Marine Corps, and we’re better to have that program execution now focused on our execution arms, meanwhile retaining that architectural and across-the-board oversight role by placing them with our R&D group,” he told USNI. He acknowledged that the new, more flexible tool of unmanned systems will have to overcome policy and technology barriers, among others, “but just the fact that there are boundaries today doesn’t mean there are going to be boundaries all the time in the future.” “I don’t think right now we are limited by either policy or technology in having a positive impact to Sailors and Marines on the battlefield or in anything they’re doing right now,” he said. “There are certainly great debates we’re going to have to have in the future, but that shouldn’t limit where I think we can make very positive and significant impacts on our operations.” Policy issues for unmanned systems are not unlike those for directed energy, Geurts said, adding that work on this and other aspects will continue under the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation. In terms of doctrine, retired Marine Corps Brig. Gen. 38
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Frank Kelley, who headed the now-disbanded office, said he was proud of the work his organization did in developing the roadmap. “We went all the way through” the whole Pentagon hierarchy known as DOTMLPF-F (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel Solutions, Leadership and Education, Personnel, Facilities and Policies), he said. Kelley joined Geurts in the USNI interview. Geurts acknowledged that disestablishment of the six-person office, which became effective May 7, 2018, “was a fairly bold move to make” since he had only been in his job since early December 2017, having moved from his post as acquisition executive for U.S. Special Operations Command. But he said he wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been comfortable with the team’s progress. The idea “was to get unmanned to be a part of everything the Navy does — have a little special emphasis to get it up on par with the traditional ways we’ve done warfare, and when I looked at the accomplishments [of the office], not only had they met the intent
Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 5 Platoon 142 recover an unmanned underwater vehicle in the Pacific Ocean May 10, 2017. Photo: U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Torrey W. Lee
of the tasking but actually taken it quite further, to the point where ... you can’t distinguish manned from unmanned. It’s part of everything.” Geurts said he was “worried [that] treating unmanned too much separately would hamper it, and part of the real challenge is how do we integrate it into the way we do warfare and into all these platforms. And so it was my sense was it was time to deploy those assets back next to the platforms they would be integrating with, both in the air, on the water and under water.” A November 2015 memorandum from Secretary of the Navy says, “Unmanned systems are inherently different from their manned counterparts” and that their development isn’t necessarily supported by the policies and procedures used to develop manned systems. It adds, “existing policies and requirements must be tailored to support expeditious and risk-appropriate processes for unmanned systems.”
A Mark 18. Mod. 2 unmanned underwater vehicle is lowered into the water during a mine countermeasure training exercise. Photo: U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Charles Oki
autonomous forces capable of independent and integrated missions in all physical and operational environments, including cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum.” It says these new systems “have the potential to transform the naval forces by expanding existing capabilities and enabling new ones,” and adds, “these new capabilities must drive new operational concepts and create real advantages over adversaries.” Geurts said, “[W]e need to treat unmanned as potentially different in the way we acquire it, but not in the way we operate it. We need to operate it as an integrated part of the force as we go forward.” The summary says the roadmap is “part of a multitiered approach outlined” in the 2015 memorandum.
But it also directs the Navy to “field and sustain diverse unmanned/ SEPTEMBER 2018 | UNMANNED SYSTEMS
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Operator trust Besides policy, technology and doctrine barriers, the plan for unmanned systems faces barriers of operator trust and faster acquisition. Trust must be promoted to achieve manned-unmanned teaming, the summary says. “As operators use systems that routinely achieve expected and predictable outcomes, trust will evolve and human-machine teaming capabilities will be refined.” The issue, said one observer, is that if you’re in a submarine, for instance, “and you have behind you or in front of you these unmanned systems, in order for them to provide some leverage, you have to have trust that those things will operate correctly. We’ve been talking about this for 20 years and they haven’t made a whole lot of progress in figuring out how to do this trust thing.” Bryan Clark, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says the Navy has experience with truly autonomous systems — not merely remotely operated ones — mentioning unmanned underwater vehicles, the MQ-4 Triton and X-47B unmanned aerial vehicles, and the Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle. In the near- and mid-term, he said, the service is thinking of unmanned systems not so much to deliver weapons where trust requirements would be high, but mostly as jammers or decoys, or platforms for sensors or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
An MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicle (top) designates a Hellfire missile for a manned MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter in a demonstration of manned-unmanned operations.
Faster acquisition seems to be a perennial goal of the services, but, an observer says, it never seems to happen. But Clark says unmanned systems lend themselves to rapid acquisition because things like pilot safety can be eliminated, speeding development efforts. He also says the roadmap summary is focused on nearterm technology and doesn’t get into applications that technology could deliver in the next five years or so. Nor, he says, does it mention “things that are unmanned and operate autonomously but don’t necessarily move around.” A new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program called Ocean of Things falls into this category, he said. Its purpose is to emulate the Internet of Things at sea — to link thousands of small, low-cost floating sensors in a vast network for real-time monitoring of maritime activity over large ocean areas. “I definitely think that unmanned sensor systems like that should be in the Navy’s Unmanned Systems Roadmap,” Clark says, “but right now, they’re not.” This leads some to say the Navy doesn’t fully understand the potential of unmanned systems writ large.
An unmanned surface vehicle is remotely piloted from ashore several miles away as it deploys an AQS-24A sonar during a recent exercise.
“They don’t think of those [Ocean of Things floats] in the same context” as the roadmap, an industry source says. “Even though they have exactly the same command and control problems” as classic unmanned systems, they’re excluded from the plan. “They’re still coming to grips with it all.” SEPTEMBER 2018 | UNMANNED SYSTEMS
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