Page 7 - Leverage and Learn

Leverage Allied Investments and Combat Learning Experience in Modernizing the U.S. Military

Real-world Experience

SAMDIS has been in production for four years and is in operational service with several allied nations.
In particular, Britain and France employ SADMIS in their joint mine countermeasures program. The system is
software upgradable, which means that experience with the now deployed and operational systems can easily
provide data for software upgrades of contemporary as well as future versions.

Also, because SAMDIS is platform agnostic and scalable, it can be deployed on a variety of current and future
platforms. Although especially configured for deployment from unmanned underwater vehicles, it can be deployed
from unmanned surface vehicles.

These could be hosted by the U.S. Navy’s littoral combat ships (LCS) or other naval or commercial ships of
opportunity.

In October 2016, GPS World reported on the results the multinational Unmanned Warrior exercise.
“These systems can help protect our Sailors and Marines from some of the Navy’s dull, dirty and dangerous
missions, like mine countermeasures,” according to the U.S. Chief of Naval Research Rear Admiral Mat Winter. “

“Additionally, these systems can increase our capabilities at a more affordable cost of the conventional systems
we currently employ.”

The “Ghost Fleet”

In February 2017, Defense News reported that the Navy was working to develop quickly a “ghost fleet” of
numerous surface, air and undersea drones that would synchronize a wide-range of combat missions without
placing sailors and Marines at risk. Captain Jon Rucker, program manager for unmanned maritime systems in the
LCS program outlined top-level requirements: “We want to have multiple systems teaming and working together,
surface, air and undersea.”
Rucker explained that the Pentagon and the Navy are advancing this drone-fleet concept to search and destroy
mines, swarm and attack enemies, deliver supplies and conduct, reconnaissance and surveillance missions, among
other tasks. These capabilities could operate in a combat environment with little or no human intervention after
being programmed for the specific role.
Defense News noted that the Navy’s Office of Naval Research has been working closely with the Defense
Department’s Strategic Capabilities Office to fast track this technology into an operational service.

Dr. William Roper, the DOD capabilities director, explained that much of this effort involves merging new
platforms, weapons, and technologies with existing systems in a way improves capability while circumventing a
lengthy and often bureaucratic formal acquisition process.

For example, USVs and UUVs configured for MCM search, detect, localize, classify, identify, and
neutralize/exploit tasks could take advantage of the “off-the-shelf” SAMDIS system, which already has been
demonstrated in Navy tests.

In addition to autonomous operations by a UUV with SAMDIS, a tow-configured SAMDIS could deploy from the
in-development Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle (CUSV).

And in that regards the Arctic is an area of growing interest.

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