House appropriators are adding $35 million to a Navy research program to test the viability of large, commercial unmanned undersea vehicles as early as fiscal year 2024. Lawmakers are recommending the additional dollars to facilitate rapid prototyping, experimentation and demonstration (RPED) of commercially available large diameter unmanned undersea vehicles (LDUUVs). “The Secretary of the Navy should focus experimentation efforts on platforms that are commercially available, at a high technology readiness level, do not require submarines as host platforms to conduct...
