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5. Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] 5. Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] Student Learning Objectives 1. Students will be able to understand what asymmetric warfare is and how autonomous underwater systems can be utilized to conduct it. 2. Current applications for autonomous maritime vehicles. 3. Introduction to emerging AUV / UUV technologies and programs that will allow the student to better understand the potential for growing threats. Asymmetry in Warfare: War between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly. This is typically a war between a standing, professional army and an insurgency or resistance movement militias who often have status of unlawful combatants. Asymmetric warfare can describe a conflict in which the resources of two belligerents differ in essence and, in the struggle, interact and attempt to exploit each other’s characteristic weaknesses. Such struggles often involve strategies and tactics of unconventional warfare, the weaker combatants attempting to use strategy to offset deficiencies in quantity or quality of their forces and equipment. (Thomas, 2010) Such strategies may not necessarily be militarized. (Stepanova, 2016) This is in contrast to symmetric warfare, where two powers have comparable military power and resources and rely on tactics that are similar overall, differing only in details and execution. (Thomas, 2010) 130 | Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems This chapter was written to expose the reader to current and envisioned autonomous maritime technologies under development. The likes of which could potentially be used in non-standard or asymmetric methods. With the unspoken goal of possibly subvert or attack US naval forces and the Department of Homeland Security. Naval Asymmetric Warfare The US Navy remains arguably the most powerful naval force in the world. With the ability to project global power and reach while influencing US foreign policy by its mere presence, potential state and non-state adversaries continually seek ways to mitigate, undermine or even attack US naval forces that pose a threat to their regional interests. Cost effective autonomous underwater vehicles have been identified by adversarial military and domestic criminal organizations as a means to cheaply subvert US naval capabilities and prowess. Autonomous Underwater Vehicle An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a robot that travels underwater without requiring input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification that includes non-autonomous remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) – controlled and powered from the surface by an operator/pilot via an umbilical or using remote control. In military applications an AUV is more often referred to as an unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV). Underwater gliders are a subclass of AUVs. Until relatively recently, AUVs have been used for a limited number of tasks dictated by the limited technology available. With the development of more advanced processing capabilities and high yield power supplies, AUVs are now being used for more dynamic applications / tasks with current roles and missions constantly evolving. Applications Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] | 131 Illegal Drug Trafficking: Submarines that travel autonomously to a destination by means of GPS navigation have been made and are currently in use by illegal drug traffickers. This would limit the need for “go fast” boat operators reducing overall cost, electromagnetic signature and risk to personnel. Recent semi-submersible seizures by the US Coast Guard in the Gulf of Mexico may be prompting criminal organizations to shift to autonomous operations. Air Crash and Maritime Search Investigations: Autonomous underwater vehicles, for example AUV ABYSS, have been used to find wreckages of missing airplanes, e.g. Air France Flight 447, and the Bluefin-21 AUV was used in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. (Mason, 2014) Developing technologies may soon provide a long endurance persistent presence throughout vast swaths of open ocean that could be used to detect downed aircraft or sinking / sunk surface / subsurface vessels. Military Applications: The U.S. Navy Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) Master Plan (NAVY, 2004) identified the following UUV’s missions: • Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance • Mine countermeasures • Anti-submarine warfare • Inspection/identification • Oceanography • Communication/navigation network nodes • Payload delivery • Information operations • Time-critical strikes 132 | Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] Recently, The Navy Master Plan divided all known UUVs into four classes (Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest, 2015): • Man-portable vehicle class: 25–100 lb displacement; 10–20 hours endurance; launched from small water craft manually (i.e., Mk 18 Mod 1 Swordfish UUV) • Lightweight vehicle class: up to 500 lb displacement, 20–40 hours endurance; launched from RHIBusing launch-retriever system or by cranes from surface ships (i.e., Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish UUV) • Heavyweight vehicle class: up to 3,000 lb displacement, 40–80 hours endurance, launched from submarines • Large vehicle class: up to 10 long tons displacement; launched from surface ships and submarines Underwater Gliders In addition to the list of standard UUV’s, the underwater glider (UG) is a type of autonomous underwater vehicle that uses small changes in its buoyancy to move up and down and uses wings to convert the vertical motion to horizontal, propelling itself forward with very low power consumption. (See Figure 5.1) In 2004, the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research began developing large gliders that were designed to quietly track diesel electric submarines in littoral waters, remaining on station for up to six months. (XRay) Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] | 133 Figure 5.1 UUV US Navy Underwater Glider Source: (NOAA, 2020) Gliders are currently being used by NOAA to track oceanic data to help with hurricane forecasting. NOAA hopes the data collected from these gliders will help enhance our understanding of air-sea interaction processes during hurricane force wind events. In 2020 a network of hurricane underwater gliders was implemented to assess the impact hurricane force winds on upper ocean density structure, and assess the impact of ocean profile data from underwater gliders in operational intensity forecasts. (XRay) Gliders remain a simple way to establish a persistent networks of sensors at low cost that could potentially carry payloads for various mission sets. They could then be used for tracking potential adversarial threats, while presenting multiple dilemmas the enemy would have to respond to at a very low cost compared to manned vessels that only have a fractional durational use. As sea glider technology continues to mature, communication and electromagnetic signature reductions for these suites will have to be taken into consideration in order to maintain a low observable 134 | Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] persistent presence. Figure 5.2 shows how sea gliders can be deployed in formations to create a network of arrayed sensors. Figure 5.2 Underwater Glider Deployment Source: (NOAA, 2020) US Navy’s NEMESIS Program The US Navy is currently working to develop an advanced electronic warfare program that uses drone swarms in the air and sea to cooperatively fool a wide variety of sensors dispersed over a large area. Known as “Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature against integrated Sensors” or NEMESIS. The Navy has spent the last several years developing and integrating multiple types of unmanned vehicles, shipboard and submarine systems, countermeasures, electronic warfare payloads, and communication technologies to give if the ability to give it the ability to project what is, in essence, phantom fleets of aircraft, ships and submarines. These realistic-looking false signatures and decoys have the ability to appear seamlessly across disparate and geographically separated enemy sensors systems located both above and below the ocean’s surface. As a result, this networked and cooperative electronic warfare concept brings an unprecedented level Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] | 135 of guileful fidelity to a fight. It’s not just about disrupting the enemy’s capabilities or confusing them at a command and control level, but also making their sensors tell them the same falsehoods across large swathes of the battle space. (Tingley, 2020) DARPA’s Ocean of Things The name is a play on the Internet of Things and the aim is to achieve persistent maritime situational awareness over large ocean areas. While satellites can provide some information, DARPA project manager John Waterson points out that there are gaps in their coverage – optical satellites cannot see through clouds, radar satellites only have limited coverage, and none of them can say much about what is going on underwater. (Hambling, 2020) Figure 5.3 Ocean of Things (OoT) Concept – floating sensors 136 | Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] Source: (Hambling, 2020) Chapter 5 Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems [Hood] | 137 Ocean of Things concept of operations, as the float senses activity on and under the water and passes back details via satellite – DARPA image. Floating sensors, known as floats, can gather far more detailed information, and can remain
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