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"SPARTAN Scout meets a need for ship force protection"
(Vice Admiral James G. Stavridis)
Children of all ages love to play with remote controlled toys, especially vehicles such as boats that can sail across the water. For bigger "kids" who play with much larger boats, Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) are the newest and most capable toys on the block. These vehicles have the advantage of remote operation, and can be equipped with a variety of payloads that offer new defensive weapons for naval surface fleets.
UAV AND UUV ARE IN USE, NOW USV ARE EMERGING
In recent years, as interest in this novel technology has grown, so too has the number of efforts developing not only USVs, but also the supporting technology. Remote controlled boats have been used for years by the U.S. Navy as targets for gun practice, but now adding mission-capable sensors and weapons to small boats is becoming a transforming influence on the future Navy. In the mid-1990s, a small effort called OWL examined small USVs for surveillance applications. However, although unmanned vehicles in the air, on the ground, and undersea were under development and application, the surface application remained largely unexplored. In the early 200Os, the Navy began to focus on projects in the area of USVs and, in 2002, the SPARTAN Scout Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) was approved by the Deputy Under-secretary of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts / DUSD (AS&C). In the years following, other USV efforts emerged in Government and private industry. The USV programme was started by the Office of Naval Research to explore USV platform technology. More recently, the SEA FOX, under the cognisance of the Space and Naval Warfare Command, Charleston, has been developed as a low-cost USV for harbour and port protection scenarios. Industry has also initiated USV projects, which would support force protection missions, since this area is viewed as a growth market. In one such effort, Rafael (Israel) has developed an integrated combat...