The US Navy is testing whether it can robotically refuel Navy drones at sea, a capability that could allow them to operate longer in higher-risk waters.
Unmanned surface ships may not need a crew, but they still need fuel to operate. The recent test is a step toward a fully autonomous refueling process that Navy officials say could ultimately let the service send unmanned ships into dangerous waters for longer without human support.
The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division on Wednesday shared details of a recent refueling demonstration featuring the remotely piloted T38 USV built by Maritime Tactical Systems Inc. and a towable capture-and-connection robot tank system made by Sealartec.
During testing in the waters off Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia, the drone and refueling system completed dozens of capture, refuel and release exercises. Four hundred liters of fuel were transferred to the T38.
The immediate problem the Navy is trying to solve involves the Navy’s testing of hypersonic and other equipment long-range weapons. Those tests, “where flight profiles can extend thousands of miles beyond the limits of a fixed range,” could “require data collection resources to be spread over a wide area,” Spencer Holloway, director of the division’s Blue Water Instrumentation Future Capabilities Office, said in a news release.
The drone’s refueling probe. Courtesy of a photo from the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division
Marine drones are useful for collecting that data, but must return for fuel savings during their time at the station. Holloway said that “every time an unmanned vessel has to return to port for fuel, we lose persistence, reduce coverage and redundancy, and interrupt the mission.”
The Navy also sees a broader application.
‘This gives us even more confidence unmanned ships rather than manned, and we can push the USV into higher threat areas without endangering manned ships and personnel,” Ronald Raymer, branch chief for Capability, Innovation, Science and Technology Integration at the US Fleet Forces Command, said in the press release.
“It will also allow us to spread greater capabilities over an area without having to invest in large, expensive manned ships,” he said.
The demonstration in August was not completely autonomous. The Navy’s next step is a complete end-to-end test where a drone boat can learn about a robotic refueling system, approach it, connect, take on fuel, disconnect and return to its mission without operator control every step of the way.
To do that, Holloway said, the systems involved will need more precise maneuvering and better local positioning.
