Huntington Ingalls Industries unveiled its new submersible named Proteus, which was developed in partnership with Battelle and Bluefin Robotics, at the recent Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Maryland, the Daily Press reported April 13.
Hugh Lessig writes that HII highlighted Proteus’s “flexible” design as the company seeks to potentially deploy the submersible to support the U.S. Navy‘s undersea naval operations and warfare.
The design includes capabilities for both unmanned and manned missions, the report said.
“We’ve built this vehicle to show you can have one vehicle to fulfill both sets of missions,” said Ross Lindman, senior vice president of operations at Undersea Solutions Group, which HII acquired in January.
“They really hadn’t considered that from the government side.”
Lindman noted that HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding arm could also deploy its nuclear-powered submarines to launch and retrieve Proteus during missions.
Both HII and Battelle-Bluefin featured Proteus in their separate exhibits at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition, the report said.