U.S. Navy Pushes ‘Edge of the Envelope’
to Enhance USV Autonomy
BY GEORGE GALDORISI
As the informed readership of Seapower is
well aware, while the nature of war — the use of violence
to crush the will of an adversary to achieve a political
objective — is unchanging throughout the course of
human history, the character of war changes over
time. The character of war — the technology, strategy,
operational concepts, tactics, techniques and procedures
— is in constant flux.
We’re able to simulate these adversaries
and simulate their strategies in a way
that allows our forces to train like they’re
going to fight.
Recent technological developments, especially with
uncrewed systems, have dramatically changed the
character of war over the last several decades, and
especially this decade. One only need to have a passing
knowledge of the conflicts between Ukraine and Russia,
the conflict between Israel and Iran, or the ongoing
threat posed by the Houthi forces in Yemen to see that
the use of these unmanned systems is dramatically
changing how adversaries fight one another.
While many nations and militaries have engineered
advances in the development, fielding and use of un
manned systems, the U.S. Navy has been a leader in this
effort. There were several initiatives the Navy took over
the past several decades, such as the use of uncrewed air
and ground systems to meet urgent operational needs in
Iraq and Afghanistan. That said, these were essentially
“one-off” events without staying power.
The U.S. Navy’s embrace of uncrewed systems
accelerated in 2009 when the Chief of Naval Operations – Joe LukacsfÏ, head, Range Systems Engineering
Naval Surface Warfare Center
Strategic Studies Group issued its report, “The
Unmanned Imperative.” This concept focused on
integrating uncrewed systems into the Navy’s force
structure as a way to ensure maritime dominance. The
report was well received by then-CNO Admiral Gary
Roughead and soon gained traction Navy wide.
Serial Innovator
The U.S. Navy has led the development of uncrewed
systems in all domains — air, surface, subsurface and
ground. This should come as no surprise, as the Navy
has been at the forefront of innovation throughout its
history. Whether it was the transition from sail to steam,
or the advent of steel warships to replace wooden ones,
or the change from the battleship to the aircraft carrier
The operating picture of the Joint Staff demonstration to see if autonomy could be achieved through
collaboration and technical integration of uncrewed systems and sensing software.
to the centerpiece of the Navy fleet, these changes helped
the U.S. Navy dominate at sea.
In the Cold War era, this innovative journey gathered
momentum: from the introduction of the first nuclear
submarine, USS Nautilus, in 1954; to the first of the
Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers in 1975; to the first
Aegis-class warship, USS Ticonderoga, in 1983. These
innovative technological developments kept the Navy at
the forefront of warfighting prowess.
panacea. A ship without Sailors
embarked is only half of the solution.
The issue of how many Sailors it
takes to operate the craft is the
pacing challenge.
Uncrewed Doesn’t Equal Autonomous
When people talk about systems
that are uncrewed — meaning there
is no human operator aboard the
craft — they often conflate the terms
“uncrewed” and “autonomous” and
use the terms interchangeably. This
leads to confusion and obscures the
fact there is a human footprint, and
often a very large one, needed to
operate and maintain an “uncrewed
system.”
To be sure, one of the most pressing challenges for the
all the U.S. military services, especially the U.S. Navy,
is to reduce the prohibitively burdensome manpower
footprint currently necessary to operate uncrewed
systems. Military manpower makes up the largest part
of the total ownership cost of systems across all the
services.
One of the most pressing challenges for the U.S. Navy
is to build enough ships to meet the Navy’s burgeoning
global commitments. Ships are expensive. Indeed,
the price of a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer
has risen to $2.2 billion. A recent Navy Science and
Technology Board report entitled “The Path Forward
on Unmanned Systems” put it this way: “We cannot
manifest a bigger traditional Navy in a few short years.”
To put more hulls in the water, the U.S. Navy has
embarked on a sea change in the composition of the
future fleet, indicating the Navy-after-next will be a
“hybrid fleet.” This concept was first articulated by
then-CNO Admiral Michael Gilday, embraced by his
successor, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, and has now gained
purchase with current Navy leadership.
The basics of this initiative are described in the Chief
of Naval Operations’ “Force Design 2045” which calls
for 350 crewed ships and 150 large uncrewed maritime
vessels. However, fielding uncrewed ships is not a
Lessons learned throughout the development process of
most uncrewed systems demonstrate they can actually
increase manning requirements. The U.S. Air Force has
estimated the MQ-1B Predator requires a crew of about
168 personnel, while the MQ-9 Reaper requires a crew
of 180 and the RQ-4 Global Hawk relies on 300 people to
operate and maintain it.
As General Philip Breedlove, then-vice chief of staff of
the Air Force, emphasized, “The number one manning
problem in our Air Force is manning our unmanned
platforms.” The very systems designed to reduce the
need for human operators require more manpower to
support them. The mandate to move beyond the “many
operators, many-joysticks, one-vehicle” paradigm that
has existed during the past decades for most uncrewed
systems is clear and compelling.
The need to increase the autonomy of its uncrewed
systems is especially acute for the U.S. Navy. For
autonomous aerial and maritime systems deployed from
U.S. Navy ships, every operator and technician must
embark on the ship. Each person needs a bunk, must be
fed, generates administrative and overhead requirements
and has quality of life needs that must be met. This, in
turn, generates its own additional manpower needs.
Enhancing Autonomy
A recent Joint Staff (J7)-sponsored demonstration
brought together two small defense firms, Maritime
Tactical Systems Inc., or Martac, of Florida and
California-based TurbineOne to determine if surface
system collaborative autonomy could be achieved
through collaboration and technical integration. By
merging artificial intelligence and machine learning
driven automatic target recognition with agile unmanned
surface vessels, the two industry teams demonstrated
real-world capability that is tactically relevant. This
event showed that AI/ML-enabled maritime autonomy is
not just a concept, it is field ready.
The demonstration validated the effectiveness of
integrating Turbine One’s edge-optimized AI/ML
software with Martac’s sensor-equipped USVs for
maritime security missions, including ISR and targeting
operations. The integrated Martac-TurbineOne capability
provides a force multiplying architecture for maritime
domain awareness.
The objective of this Joint Staff demonstration was to
evaluate and document the combined capabilities of
Martac’s USVs and TurbineOne’s Frontline Perception
System (FPS) in delivering an integrated, AI/ML
enabled, autonomous maritime intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance and targeting solution in a simulated
high threat environment.
During this demonstration, the Frontline Perception
System-enabled USVs patrolled maritime areas
detecting, identifying and targeting specific maritime
“threat” vessels. The threat vessels were identified by
FPS, validating the concept of AI/ML-driven maritime
automatic target recognition and targeting. Upon
detection, Martac USVs maneuvered to conduct fully
autonomous swarming operations to simulate threat
mitigation.
Three Martac USVs — high-speed platforms known
for their sensor integration and autonomy — patrolled
designated waypoints in zigzag formations. Each USV
was equipped with a suite of electro-optical, forward
looking infrared and marine radar sensors. TurbineOne’s
FPS AI/ML software was installed onboard all three
vessels, enabling each USV to process sensor inputs
locally and autonomously detect, classify and track
simulated threat vessels in real time.
FPS triggered confirmation of the contact of interest
on the detecting USV. This message was then relayed
through Martac’s mesh network, triggering the
autonomous swarm. The vessels accelerated into a
coordinated intercept formation, executing an overtaking
maneuver and maintaining persistent formation around
the contact.
The Future of Uncrewed Systems Autonomy
Earlier this year, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth
announced sweeping changes to the way the Pentagon
buys and fields unmanned systems with a goal of
establishing “domain dominance” by 2027. The new
initiative is designed to ensure potential U.S. adversaries
do not outpace the United States in developing and
fielding unmanned systems.
This successful demonstration will likely help achieve
these goals by establishing a pathway for scalable AI/ML
enabled maritime ISR operations, confirm the readiness
of autonomous USV swarming behaviors, and validate
the ability of AI/ML to support time-sensitive threat
detection missions. The integrated Martac–TurbineOne
solution represents a forward-leaning approach to
operationalizing AI/ML. This is important tactically,
operationally and even strategically as swarming is
increasingly recognized as the “coin of the realm” in
autonomous operations.
Building on the success of this demonstration, future
integration opportunities will continue to push the
boundaries of AI/ML and autonomous maritime
missions. Integrating AI and autonomous systems into
maritime USV operations is now a strategic imperative
for maintaining dominance in increasingly contested
maritime environments.
George Galdorisi is a career naval aviator and national security professional. His 30-year career
culminated in 14 years of consecutive service as executive ofÏcer, commanding ofÏcer, commodore
and chief of staf f. He enjoys writing, especially science fiction about the future of warfare. He is
the author of 18 books, including four consecutive New York Times bestsellers. His most recent
book is “Algorithms of Armageddon: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Future Wars.