Textron Systems Plans to Demonstrate Capabilities of Common Unmanned Surface Vessel at Trident 2011

Textron Systems Advanced Systems, part of Textron Systems, declared that it will be showcasing the capabilities of the Common Unmanned Surface Vessel (CUSV) as part of the Trident Warrior 2011 experiment. Trident Warrior 2011, which is scheduled between 18th and 22nd of July, is sponsored by the Program Executive Officer Littoral Combat Ship and directed by the U.S Fleet Forces Command. As part of the program there will be a media day, which is hosted by the Navy, on 20th of July.

The CUSV, which supports the Navy’s Autonomous Maritime Navigation (AMN) initiative, would conduct the Trident Warrior 2011 display in Norfolk. The AMN concept has been successfully incorporated in the CUSV in order to show robotic naval warfare skills. By integrating CUSV’s reconfigurable payload bay capabilities and AMN’s obstacle avoidance concept, the system represents a maritime “sliding autonomy” system, which is a complete loop from the fully autonomous to man-in-the-loop intervention. The sliding autonomy concept facilitates operations that are local, over-the horizon and operational and control decisions to be taken onboard the CUSV. The CUSV’s maritime command control system is based on the One System architecture from AAI. The AMN is interfaced with this architecture of the CUSV in order to support multi-mission and multi-warfare operations, which can be monitored by a single operator seated at the Universal Command and Control Station.

The payload bay of the CUSV is reconfigurable, which gives the users the freedom to deploy the payloads required by the particular missions, such as towing, mine counter measures, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine, intelligence, reconnaissance etc. Don Hairston, the Senior Vice President at Textron Systems, claimed that the CUSV has successfully completed more than 700 hours of in-water operation. He was of the opinion that by integrating AMN and CUSV, they have developed a revolutionary solution to support their customers in the area of mine and surface warfare.

Source: http://www.textronsystems.com/