The U.S. Navy held a demonstration to showcase the integration of unmanned systems across multiple domains. The experiment, conducted from Aug. 12 to 16 on the Florida Gulf Coast Test Ranges, also exhibited real-time data transmission and was meant to communicate the importance of government and industry partnerships.
The demonstration attracted over 45 participants from four NavalX Gulf Coast Tech Bridge partner commands, including the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division, Naval Research Lab Stennis, Naval Meteorological and Oceanography Command and Naval Oceanographic Office.
The participants integrated several unmanned systems to gather and transmit data to a forward-deployed shore station. During the at-sea trials, data collected were fused and displayed in real-time at the shore station. The experiment also explored different methods of novel data exfiltration, demonstrated collaborative regional efforts and built on previous Navy and non-Navy developments to enhance subsea warfare mission capabilities.
Holly Gardner, director of strategic engagement at NSWC PCD, said, “This experiment was important because it demonstrated a process for rapidly moving from focusing on the warfighter need, sourcing technologies and industry partners, understanding lessons learned from the fleet from using relevant systems, understanding how to accelerate capabilities and then executing an experiment to demonstrate the sourced capabilities.”
