The U.S. Fourth Fleet intends to continue using unmanned systems in exercises not to just test them out, but figure out how to fully operationalize them in action, according to the commander.
In April, Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Adm. Mike Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations, announced
the Navy will build off success in Central Command’s Task Force 59 (CTF 59) testing and use of unmanned systems and artificial intelligence (AI) by expanding similar work to the Fourth Fleet in Central and South America (Defense Daily, April 4).
Fourth Fleet started by standing up a separate task force to replicate the success of Task Force 59, called Task Force 49. However, the CNO later directed them to not use a separate structure like that “but rather do it inside the fleet in order to leverage all of the functions of a numbered of fleet staff, to enter to integrate all these pieces directly into operations,” Rear Adm. Jim Aiken, commander of Fourth Fleet, told reporters during a media call on July 20.
Aiken said Fourth Fleet has done that and Task Force 49 transitioned to become the fleet’s N9, a technology and innovation directorate within the regular structure and “fully baked into the staff and organic to the number fleet.”
Cmdr. David Edwards, Fourth Fleet Director of Technology and Innovation, said they stood up N9 to fully incorporate unmanned and hybrid systems into the normal battle rhythm of the fleet and planning process ahead of the launching of this work with unmanned exercises during the recent annual UNITAS international exercise.
UNITAS ran July 11 – 21.
Edwards underscored the use of unmanned operations at UNITAS “wasn’t a side experiment…it was fully integrated throughout. And that’s our goal moving forward – is to keep those systems integrated in the fleet.”
During UNITAS, the Navy specifically used the Aerosonde Small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), the Maritime Applied Physics Corporation (MAPC) Greenough Advanced Rescue Craft (USV), Boeing [BA] subsidiary Liquid Robotics’ Wave Glider Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV), Kingfish Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV), LB Glider (UUV), and Marine Corps’ Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft System (TRUAS).
Aiken underscored his command is “not going to try to build our own sort of empire” but work with and use the work done by CTF 59, Pacific Fleet, the Unmanned Task Force and industry to decide what vehicles to try to operationalize for periods longer than just testing for weeks at a time.
Edwards added other entities do weeks-long experimentation, but “what we really want to do is take the systems that had been successful in experimentation, and we work with all of the other agencies to do that experimentation to understand what successful means, and operate those systems for months at a time. That’s what we aspire to do. So that we can understand how they can achieve the mission in an integrated way and alongside traditional forces.”
UNITAS was just the first step in this effort and Edwards said while Fourth Fleet is not going to keep using the specific vehicles operated during UNITAS, they “have plans to use, essentially the same ones later on in a future mission. So it won’t be the exact same ones. But we’ll keep moving forward and iterating. And making sure we keep the best vehicles and class in mind as we move forward as we deploy and operate these vehicles.”
Aiken said next steps will involve exercises in the fall both in the Caribbean and also in the Asia-Pacific region.
He argued the sinking exercise (SINKEX) during UNITAS was good example of using these unmanned vehicles.
“What we really have done is look for technologies that would coincide with what we were trying to do for the exercise, and then look for opportunities to apply that. And probably the most interesting one was a SINKEX that we were able to do,” Aiken said.
He noted various unmanned surface and air vehicles were used to provide maritime domain awareness, range clearance, target identity and provide battle damage assessment.
“So it was a tremendous opportunity to build on what SECNAV, CNO discussed. And probably one of the things that validated what we’re doing here is we actually hosted both SECNAV and CNO during the exercise. Both came down and saw firsthand what we were working on. And I think it’s safe to say that they were pleased, but I don’t want to speak on their behalf,” Aiken said.
Aiken said of all the things CTF 59 has worked on, the idea of a mesh network created from dozens of vehicles to improve maritime domain awareness is one of the most important and interesting ideas for their area of operations (AOR). They are also looking into the stack, where several technologies from separate companies are combined to see how they can help improve domain awareness to focus on his AOR challenges of illegal fishing, counter-narcotics, and human trafficking.
“If you can network the individual vehicles together, they can work in a coordinated fashion, cover for the strength of one, cover for the weaknesses of another. And that way you can allow them to stay good at what they’re good at, and not waste time developing one thing to do all the missions. So that’s where we think the advantage of having the mesh network lies and integrating the [command and control] of all the vehicles so they can work in concert,” Edwards added.
Aiken said they are focusing on a ‘fail fast and learn often’ approach, where they look for opportunities to try new things.
He argued this is still not exactly experimentation because of the focus on trying to operationalize things for extended periods and see how it actually works out.
Aiken said one example is the fleet was using a USV during UNITAS but the rate of gas consumption was 30 percent higher than thought due to the sea state.
“So what that did is it’s providing great support for the SINKEX and then some of the events later on, because it didn’t have the gas that it needed, we had to actually pull it back in and use some of the other assets that we have both manned and unmanned, in order to keep the mission going and provide the situational awareness, maritime domain awareness.”
Aiken called UNITAS a “wild success” with integration with partners. After a Peruvian Navy ship serving as the flagship during the exercise had access to a live feed of the SINKEX from UAVs alongside the commander in charge at the headquarters in Cartagena, Columbia, the partners saw how valuable the unmanned vehicles could be.
He said similar to CTF 59 the regional partners are very interested in procuring their own unmanned systems and networking them to improve maritime domain awareness.
Aiken said Fourth Fleet and the partner countries are having discussions about purchasing vs. leasing the vehicles. He argued leasing currently has more value because how much industry will pay for the research and development while the governments do not have to worry as much about technology becoming quickly obsolete.
Edwards confirmed that Fourth Fleet itself is “focused on leasing initially, particularly so that we can stay at the leading edge of technology, we don’t want to commit to certain things. So we’re more interested in leasing going forward.”