The relatively new Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for unmanned systems, Frank Kelley, said in his kickoff speech at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Defense 2016 that his year-old office is working to set up a tactical roadmap for Navy unmanned systems, one that will become a living document and involve input from industry.

The Navy wants unmanned systems to be “the new normal,” Kelley said, adding, “I do think we are on that trajectory, I feel really good about it.”

The DASN was set up just over a year ago, just in time for Kelley to make his debut at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Defense 2015. The goal: Tie all the unmanned systems stakeholders in the U.S. Navy together and synthesize their work.

Those stakeholders are making aggressive plans, Kelley said, including achieving dominance in the air and on and under the water, including by adding advanced autonomy and machine learning, which is “something we are constantly thinking of in the background. How much artificial intelligence are we willing to let these machines have as they operated with manned forces out in the operational fleet?”

Swarming systems could also come into play, giving the Navy the advantage in having a mass of systems available for warfighting.

Kelley said the DASN is working on a new, comprehensive roadmap for unmanned systems use and manned-unmanned systems teaming.

One objective is to “put the Navy in the position … to be able to develop and field unmanned systems at will, when we want to, not when we’re told to or when there is no other option,” Kelley said.

To that end, it will be tactical but won’t lock in schedules (“that’s the job of the program managers”) or dictate requirements.

It will also seek to leverage the military’s emerging accelerated acquisition processes and promote acceptance of the systems both among the public and sailors and Marines.

“Trust is a huge issue, especially with some of our younger sailors and Marines who realize they are going to be working alongside a machine, flying alongside a machine … how do you characterize trust, how do you build trust in a system?” Kelley asked.

DASN held three workshops on the roadmap, the first in May at the Naval Warfare College, the second in San Diego in July, and the final one back at the NWC in September.

Kelley said interest in the workshops grew rapidly, and by the time the final one rolled around he joked that it was like planning a wedding.

“We almost had to hold a lottery [to participate] … because seating was limited,” he said. “It was termed wedding planning, and I’m telling you it got really tough.”

Kelley didn’t say when the roadmap will be finished, but said he wants to get it out “for folks to read, because I think it will be important.”

It will be a living document prone to change, so there will be more workshops in the future, and will be open to industry involvement, which Kelley said is “absolutely critical.”

Marine Perspectives

Lt. Gen. Robert S. Walsh, commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, spoke next and said the Marine Corps is seeking to change the way it operates by adding in more unmanned systems.

“We have been in an era where technology has allowed us to … dominate just about any enemy out there in the last 15 years,” he said. But with some peer adversaries now, “we’re going to fall behind if we don’t rapidly change the way we’re operating.”

The Marine Corps is an expeditionary force that often comes from the sea, so traveling light has been its philosophy. Now, having multiple small systems will allow it to “flip” that philosophy and have more mass on its side, he said.

The service has launched Sea Dragon 2025, an effort aimed at testing new ways to integrate unmanned systems of all types into the mix. Its first phase kicked off with MIX 16, mock warfare at Twentynine Palms, California, where two relatively equal mock combatants fought, a demonstration that included the use of more than 40 unmanned systems, both in the air and on the ground.

At the debrief, service officials learned that “not every system worked perfectly, but a lot of them were surrogates. The bottom line, at the end of the day, was they were just excited about bringing more and more of that capability in there.”

The Marines plan to do just that, as the service is buying four battalions’ worth of small unmanned aircraft, and “we probably want them across the entire force.”

The Marines are also bringing in an assistant squad leader for every squad, to help with wrangling the technology.

“We don’t want the squad leader heads-down to focus on that [working with unmanned systems], so the assistant squad leader will help manage the technology,” Walsh said.

Down the road, the Marines could start storming the beaches in a very different way than they did in World War II and Korea, when dangerous approaches led to heavy losses.

“We see technology taking us in a new direction,” Walsh said.

Instead of Marines being the first wave in, it’s unmanned systems and robotics … moving in first, looking for mines that may be in front of them, sensing where the enemy may be located” to plan better approaches.

Airborne and waterborne sensors could go first, he said, “sensing, locating and maybe killing in front of those Marines.”

Chief of Naval Research

Rear Adm. Mat Winter, Chief of Naval Research, said at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Defense’s opening day that his office has several major areas of investment he considers priorities, including such advanced technology areas as directed energy weaponry, cybersecurity and even synthetic biology and bio-inspired systems.

ONR plans on addressing these areas of priorities in its $2 billion budget by using both short and long-term plans to tackle projects. Some are “quick reaction” projects, with a one-to two-year timeline, while others can only be achieved over time.

Winter said recent successes include the prototype testing of Sea Hunter, the large USV developed by DARPA for submarine-hunting duties, although Winter said the Navy welcomes ideas from industry and academia for other payload ideas. The Navy is also working on the Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV). Several speakers touted their interest in swarming systems, and Winter noted that his office has demonstrated unmanned swarm boats as well.

Winter said he would like to see these systems, and future ones, be developed to achieve full integration, so that they can be used together to achieve whatever missions the Navy needs.

Naval Meteorology and Oceanography

Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, commander of Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, said his command is also seeking to expand its use of unmanned systems as it supports submarine, mine, special operations and expeditionary warfare.

Gallaudet noted that current teams required to operate unmanned underwater vehicles indicate that there’s nothing manned about unmanned. His office would like to move to an construct where one controller can operate multiple vehicles, which it is seeking to do with Glider Observation Strategies, or GOST, which would allow just that.

It’s an autonomous control system for gliders, but the command is also porting it over to its autonomous underwater vehicles, Gallaudet said.

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