UUV Energy Systems

The Office of Naval Research is seeking industry proposals "for an energy dense air-independent, rechargeable/refuelable energy system for the Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Innovative Naval Prototype (LD UUV INP)," according to an announcement posted yesterday on Federal Business Opportunities. Further:

The goal of this program is to develop and demonstrate power system technologies capable of the performance specifications and characteristics contained in Tables 1-4 of the [broad area announcement]. Proposals shall describe a complete system concept, provide a detailed scope of work for the development of the core technology(ies) and conduct integrated bench-top system testing to achieve a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of no less than 4 (Phase I Base). In addition to the specific S&T performance capabilities, proposers are expected to conduct a safety analysis (Preliminary Hazard/Safety Analysis (PHSA), reference in Appendix B) of the system energy technology concept. Any proposal that does not provide a specific full system solution, as well as a safety analysis, will not be considered.

PLEASE NOTE: NUCLEAR POWER OPTIONS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED FOR THIS EFFORT

Inside the Navy reported in April that the service has been working on concept documents that will guide the future of unmanned underwater vehicles and antisubmarine warfare, according to the official in charge of the projects. Further:

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead released his Guidance for 2011 document in October, stating that the service would "develop a streamlined, appropriately resourced model for concept generation and concept development at the operational level of war."

Since 2008, Naval Warfare Development Command has been developing concepts through a program known as "Concept Generation and Concept Development," or CGCD, and some major projects that will guide the future of many programs are under way.

Capt. David Tyler, director of concepts and capability development at NWDC, told Inside the Navy in an April 7 interview that the first project CGCD was involved in is the Leveraging the Undersea Environment concept.

"That set a pretty high bar for this whole concept development process, and as a result it also generated some actions, so we've been working quite a few of the ideas that have fallen out of that," he said.

A couple of concepts have been significant efforts at NWDC and "consumed a good part of my daily life here this year," Tyler said. One of those is the UUV enabling concept; the other is the distributed managed systems for antisubmarine warfare enabling concept (DMS for ASW).

The UUV enabling concept is about 70 percent complete, he said. "We've been working it through a series of workshops and war games and tabletops, trying to take a look at those UUVs we expect to have in the near-term, what are the capabilities we'd like to have on those things, what type of sensors or what do we need them to be able to do in the mid-term and long-term," said Tyler. "So we're trying to link all these technological advances together and, at the same time, make sure that they're meeting the warfighter's needs."

Once the concept is complete it will guide future UUV programs -- something the service did not have for its unmanned aircraft efforts. "You can see what's happening in the air, with the result of [Operation Enduring Freedom] -- that war really put a lot of unmanned vehicles in the air, almost jumping out in front of any visionary approach to how they use unmanned vehicles," Tyler said. "We're going about it a little smarter, I think, in the undersea environment, planning a little bit longer path ahead and investing smarter in the systems that we think we'll need to meet the warfighter demands."