Mary-Louise Hoffman
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has christened an autonomous vessel demonstrator that a Leidos-led team designed and built for DARPA’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel program.
Leidos Chairman and CEO Roger Krone joined several DARPA and Defense Department officials during the christening of a prototype unit for the Sea Hunter ACTUV at a dockside ceremony held Thursday in Portland, Oregon, the company said Thursday.
“This event showcases exciting advances in autonomous technology, and highlights our open architecture approach and extensive testing that has made ACTUV a reality,” noted Krone, an inductee into Executive Mosaic‘s Wash100 for 2016.
The ceremony was attended by DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar and Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work as well as Rear Adm. Robert Girrier, director of unmanned warfare systems at the U.S. Navy, and Rear. Adm. Mathias Winter, the Navy’s chief of naval research, innovation technology requirements and test and evaluation.
DARPA said Thursday the 130-foot Sea Hunter is designed to operate autonomously in the open seas for months at a time to perform countermine or submarine tracking missions.
The agency has partnered with the Office of Naval Research to test the vessel and several associated payloads off the California coast beginning this summer.
