Development Trend of Military UUV(Ⅰ): A Review of U.S. Military Unmanned System Development Plan

The Department of Defense(DoD) of the United States had published four editions of Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap during 2007~2013 to present the integrated development strategy and plan of unmanned aircraft systems(UASs), unmanned maritime systems(UMSs), and unmanned ground systems(UGSs) for future 25 years with emphases on the cross-domain cooperative combat capability of various unmanned systems and the common technologies. Subsequently, some DoD organizations and military services released a series of research reports on unmanned systems. In 2016, U.S. Navy submitted the report Autonomous Undersea Vehicles Requirement for 2025 to the congress, in which some new concepts, such as Seabed Warfare and Counter-AUV Warfare, were proposed. The Defense Science Board(DSB) provided detailed recommendations in its study report Autonomy for accelerating adoption of autonomous technology. A DSB task force suggested in its report Next-Generation Unmanned Undersea Systems that the low-cost unmanned undersea systems which could be deployed in large numbers should be greatly developed to maintain and enhance the American undersea advantage. This paper reviews the above reports, introduces the new classification method for UUVs and the change of UUV mission requirement of U.S. Navy, and describes in detail some critical technology domains of UUV, such as interoperability, autonomy, communication, advanced navigation, manned-unmanned (MUM) teaming, persistent resilience, and weaponry. The issues about logistics and sustainment of UUV, training, and force structure are discussed. Development trend of UUVs is outlined. And some viewpoints on UUV development are described. As a result, suggestions are offered that the concepts of operation and development of UUV should be explored; the most important aspects of UUV development and employment should be taken as system of systems (SoS) based on operation, low cost, interoperatability and modularity, etc.; top organization for governing all unmanned systems should be established; new acquisition procedure of UUV in civil and military integration mode, as well as new sustainment mode and strategy, should be explored; and UUV concept of employment should be investigated simultaneously with the development of UUV technologies.