On June 22, DARPA’s sub-hunting Sea Hunter autonomous ship successfully completed its first performance trials, which took place in San Diego, California.




Sea Hunter, being developed for DARPA’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program, is intended to become the first ship of its kind, with its main objective being to autonomously shadow diesel-electric submarines over long stretches of time and distance.




During its initial trials, the 132-foot trimaran passed several key tests in a variety of areas from maneuverability to speed and acceleration. The vessel is currently in a two-year testing program that is designed to examine its capabilities while at sea.




Autonomous and unmanned vessels are an emerging phenomenon in the military industry, and in an article published in AUVSI’s May 2016 edition of Unmanned Systems magazine, Sea Hunter’s primary contractor Leidos spoke on the importance of autonomy in the future of military operations.




“Maritime autonomy is a disruptive technology,” said Leidos. “It is still in its infancy, but it has the potential for changing the way we do some of our future naval missions.”
The hope is that at the end of the two-year testing program, Sea Hunter will be fully autonomous with minimal supervision. Upcoming tests in the next few months will examine Sea Hunter’s autonomy suite, along with other functionalities.




Earlier this year, Director of DARPA Arati Prabhakar told congress that Sea Hunter “embodies breakthroughs in autonomous navigational capabilities with the potential to change the nature of U.S. maritime operations.” If this statement proves to be true, then Sea Hunter and other ships like it might one day be able to join the Navy’s operation to perform a variety of tasks.

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