Adm. Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations, said the U.S. Navy will test industry-made unmanned ship technologies as the service seeks to establish a fleet of operational unmanned platforms by the 2030s, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.
Gilday said at the West 2022 conference in San Diego that the Navy is focusing on seven classified “spirals,” through which the service will assess the viability of selected technologies to the envisioned, future fleet.
“We’re taking a look at problem sets like payload integration on larger unmanned [systems], reliability with respect to engineering plans or flight controls on other unmanned [vehicles],” he said.
The admiral said the Navy wants to implement smaller unmanned platforms in the near future but prepare for scaling up the fleet in the next decade.
