WILMINGTON, Mass., July 14 (UPI) -- A multi-role, unmanned surface vessel is being demonstrated in U.S. Navy exercises this month by Textron Systems Advanced Systems.
Textron said its Common Unmanned Surface Vessel is designed with a reconfigurable payload bay, enabling quick deploy meant for a variety of missions, including towing, mine countermeasures, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, communications relay, launch and recovery for unmanned aircraft and underwater systems and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
"Our CUSV has completed several successful demonstrations to date and amassed more than 700 hours of in-water operation," said Textron Systems Advanced Systems Senior Vice President and General Manager Don Hairston. "The integration of AMN and the CUSV creates a revolutionary capability to support our customers' current and future objectives, especially in the area of mine and surface warfare.
"We believe it to be a game-changer for our maritime warfighters, and Trident Warrior 2011 is another outstanding opportunity to demonstrate its power and performance."
The CUSV will complete its Trident Warrior 2011 demonstration in Norfolk, Va., in support of the Navy's Autonomous Maritime Navigation initiative.
Textron Systems integrated AMN into its CUSV to allow its team to demonstrate robotic naval warfare in a range of "sliding autonomy" -- from fully autonomous operation to man-in-the-loop intervention.
Sliding autonomy enables local, over-the-horizon and operational control decisions to be made onboard the CUSV. AMN interfaces with the CUSV's maritime command and control system, which is based upon AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems' combat-proven One System architecture, to support multi-mission/multi-warfare operations capable of being monitored by a single operator in the Universal Command and Control Station.
