By Geoff Fein
Stiletto, a high-speed, 80-foot long vessel built using composite materials has wrapped up three months of testing of its unique hull design, and will begin a new series of experiments next week looking at command and control of unmanned systems.
The sleek looking Stiletto with its unique double M-hull configuration was docked at the Navy Yard this week to allow visitors the opportunity to see the sleek composite craft up close.
Today, it is heading back to Norfolk where it will prepare for another round of tests.
Stiletto has never been a program of record, Cmdr. James Hruska, transformation strategist in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Defense Daily yesterday.
“It was built to be a maritime test bed,” he said. “We are funded for 123 days of underway experimentation.”
Keeping it from becoming a program of record enables the Navy, or any other service, the ability to conduct operations without having to obtain permission, Hruska added.
The craft, built by San Diego-based M Ship Co., spent three months undergoing both calm and rough water trials, Hruska said.
“The information is being crunched by naval architects,” he added.
Those results will be used to endorse or dismiss the M-hull design, Hruska said.
While he couldn’t comment on the results, Hruska said Stiletto operated as M Ship Co. had advertised it would.
The calm water trials were conducted off of Patuxent River, Md., to calculate acceleration and deceleration as well as fuel efficiency. The rough sea trials were conducted in sea state four and five in the Atlantic off of Norfolk, Va. Those tests included an examination of the hull’s stability, Hruska said.
Special Operations Command paid a third of the cost to develop Stiletto and the Office of the Secretary of Defense is the sponsor of the program. The Navy is the customer testing new technologies, Hruska added.
Among the systems demonstrated on Stiletto were the Augmented Reality Visualization of the Common Operational Picture (ARVCOP). Hruska said the system ties together all the ship’s sensors into a single display for the coxswain. The Navy has bought one of the systems, which is built by Maine-based Technology Systems Inc.
ARVCOP is now permanently onboard Stiletto, Marli Hagen, business operations manager for Technology Systems, told Defense Daily.
The company is also testing a land-based system for use on the Marine Corps’ AAV, she added.
The AAV effort is six months into a three year program, Chuck Benton, the company’s chief technical officer, said to Defense Daily.
“We are now starting to look at USVs (unmanned surface vehicle),” he said.
ARVCOP started as a joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Coast Guard effort, Benton said. The system is now being considered for DDG-1000 and will go on General Dynamics‘ [GD] Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), he added. Lockheed Martin [LMT] is also developing an LCS variant.
“The Canadian coast guard is now looking at it,” Benton said.
ARVCOP was also used for virtual mapping in the Gulf Coast region in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he added.
The system the Navy bought is going to be turned over to the Naval Special Clearance Team One, the mine clearance team, based in San Diego, Hruska said.
Advanced Ceramics Research has also been testing its Silver Fox unmanned aerial vehicle. The company had one of the systems, along with the launcher, onboard Stiletto yesterday.
Next week, Lockheed Martin will begin testing its experimental command and control system for control of unmanned systems, Hruska said.
Although only one Stiletto will be built, the M-hull has promise for future applications, Hruska acknowledged.
“Anyone operating in shallow water, this technology works very well,” Bill Burns, executive director and co-founder of M Ship Co., told Defense Daily yesterday.
One of the reasons behind development of Stiletto was to solve the serious issue of boat operators getting injured from exposure to high G forces from bouncing up and down when maneuvering on the water. Burns said the company did a demonstration early on of its M-hull design versus an 11-meter rigid inflatable boat (RIB). A video he was running onboard Stiletto showed the two boats in a side by side comparison on open water at 35 knots. The RIB smacked down on the water while the M Ship Co. demonstrator had a much more stable ride.
“We were able to reduce the Gs,” Burns said.
He added the company is taking lessons learned from Stiletto and folding them into the next generation craft.
“One area we are exploring is the USV opportunity,” Burns said.
The M-hull design is an ideal platform for USVs, he noted.
M Ship Co. is developing a USV platform to demonstrate ride quality for sensors, weapon and video systems. The company is hoping to display its effort at next summer’s Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) expo in San Diego. The company is funding the effort on its own.