Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced on April 15 the creation of a new office and senior civilian official charged with boosting the profile of unmanned systems.
Mabus will appoint a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Unmanned Systems to bring together stakeholders and operators and streamline development efforts. Additionally, the service is standing up a new office under the N9 office for warfare systems to “champion” robots, drones and unmanned underwater vehicles and better integrate them in operations, he said during a speech at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space exposition.
The new office will be called N99, said Mabus, who did not disclose when these changes would take effect.
Photo: U.S. Navy
The Navy must improve the speed it takes to get emerging technologies to sailors, especially innovative ones like cyber, unmanned and 3D printing capabilities, he said.
“Unmanned systems, particularly autonomous ones, have to be the new normal in ever-increasing areas,” he said. “As much as we need it and look forward to having it in the fleet for many years, the F-35 should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly.”
Mabus brought out a small unmanned glider, called the Close-In Autonomous Disposable Aircraft or CICADA, which is built of 3D printed parts and guided by GPS coordinates. Sailors on a ship could manufacture large numbers of the system, equip them with sensors and communications nodes, deploy them in an area to gather information, and not worry about damaging or destroying them, he said.
“This kind of technology—and the fact that we can print them —we can make them ourselves anywhere, is incredible. This is going to fundamentally change manufacturing and logistics, not just in the Department of the Navy, but also in the entire U.S,” he said.