A Navy solicitation showed the service is testing systems that can be used for an Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) mine sweeping swarm capability.
According to the solicitation, posted Feb. 10, Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport (NUWC DIVNPT) is conducting additional research in swarming, particularly evaluating methods of localization, navigation and communications for coordinated multi-UUV swarming operations.
“Cooperative and coordinated multi-unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) operations have enormous potential to introduce novel capabilities for the Navy, including enhanced battlespace awareness and environment intelligence gathering, mine warfare, surveillance, and anti-submarine warfare countermeasures,” the notice said.
The notice said NUWCDIVNPT intends to awards the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution a firm-fixed price sole source basis contract to this end, with an undisclosed value.
The first line item for the work includes field testing sub-systems on a NUWC UUV; fabricating, integrating and testing components in UUVs and developing multi-UUV “underwater acoustic collaboration algorithms.”
NUWCDIVNPT is responsible for developing Navy UUVs, including conducting research and development for UUVs and experimenting with systems via UUV testbed vehicles.
In this case, the vendor is expected to specifically field test the acoustic navigation sub-system for one NUWC MK 39 EMATT UUV. They will also fabricate two acoustic receiver payloads and integrate and test two MK 39 EMATTs with acoustic payload sections. This will result in building one lead UUV with the acoustic transmitter payload.
The UUVs will be provided as government-furnished property. Ultimately, the contractor will produce an acoustic transmitter payload for a lead UUV to act as a navigation reference for a fleet of three NUWC MK 39 EMATT UUVs.
The expendable MK 39 EMATT UUVs weigh under 25 pounds and are sonobuoy-sized devices currently programmed for anti-submarine warfare training scenarios.
Notably, the notice said part of the contractor’s work will involve maturing development of algorithms for multi-UUV swarming behaviors.
The contractor is also directed to refine and further develop algorithms related to acoustic processing.
“The goal of this task is to develop robust autonomous behaviors that demonstrate advanced multi-UUV capabilities – for example, multi- UUV convoying, cooperative seafloor surveying, or rigid formation-keeping for non-cooperative acoustic source localization. Demonstration of behaviors will be limited to simulation test, as the overall goal is hardware development of the multi-UUV testbed.”
The notice did not disclose when mine sweeping swarm testing under this concept will occur, but responses are due by Feb. 17 and the period of performance for the fine line item of work will last from contract award to September 2023.