U.S. Navy champions unmanned systems over, on, and under the sea

Secretary Ray Mabus’s vision
Four months ago, in his speech at the Navy League’s Sea-Air Space 2015 Exposition, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said that one of the major transformations in the U.S. Navy in coming years will be the adoption of unmanned systems. He said:

…with unmanned technology, removing a human from the machine can open up room to experiment with more risk, improve systems faster and get them to the fleet quicker. While unmanned technology itself is not new, the potential impact these systems will have on the way we operate is almost incalculable. For example, LT Rollie Wicks developed a way for an unmanned ground vehicle to communicate seamlessly with an unmanned air vehicle, autonomously identify a target, and perform a mission. We need to give ideas like this one a place to flourish, and that’s why, in the coming months, we will be making some pretty substantial changes to how the Department is organized to ensure the structure is in place to help incorporate this capability more fluidly into our operations.

I will appoint a new Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Unmanned Systems, who will help bring together all the many stakeholders and operators who are currently working on this technology in order to streamline their efforts. Additionally, the Navy Staff will add a new office for unmanned in the N-9, the N-Code for Warfare Systems, so that all aspects of unmanned — in all domains — over, on and under the sea and coming from the sea to operate on land — will be coordinated and championed.

…as good as it is, and as much as we need it and look forward to having it in the fleet for many years, the F-35 should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly.

“This is about ringing together existing elements that exist within the department, within the OPNAV staff; this isn’t about creating a new bureaucracy,” Thomas Hicks, the Navy Department’s deputy chief management officer, said in response to a question from Breaking Defense’s Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. at a panel just after Mabus’s speech.

“[It’s] bringing those together so we can have a unified way to approach unmanned, whether it’s above, on, or below the sea,” Hicks said. “What possibilities might you come to by looking at it more holistically like that vice, [for example] within the air community?”

Approaching unmanned systems holistically makes sense, said Adm. Mathias Winter, the Chief of Naval Research, speaking at the Sea-Air Space Exposition a day before Mabus’s speech. “The technologies underlying [unmanned] undersea, surface, and air [systems] are agnostic,” he said. Whether an unmanned vehicle is moving through the air, under the water, over the surface of the water, or along the ground, it can benefit from basic research into certain common areas: “sense and avoid [obstacles], persistence, autonomous behavior, power generation.”

Representative Randy Forbes (R-Virginia), chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, agrees.

“Creating a senior post focused on unmanned aviation is an important recognition by the Navy that this technology will do much to determine the service’s future and requires senior leadership within the Department to ensure its successful utilization,” Forbes told USNI News. “By standing up this new deputy assistant secretary, it’s going to give [unmanned systems] that kind of attention and focus. [It] is really a recognition by the navy of something we’ve been trying to get across to them for some time, that this technology is going to be very, very important.”

“The future of the carrier air wing is linked with the development of an unmanned system able to execute long-range, penetrating strike missions in anti-access environments. I am hopeful that whoever fills this new post will take a holistic, strategic look at the Navy’s unmanned portfolio and be a strong advocate for that vision moving forward,” Forbes said.

Adm. Robert Girrier’s mission
At the end of June, the Navy announced that Rear Adm. Robert P. Girrier, the deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet (PACFLT) and career surface warfare officer, has been named the Navy’s first director of unmanned weapon systems. Adm. Girrier will oversee the development of the Navy’s unmanned program in the air and on and under the sea.

Secretary Mabus announced in April the creation of the N99 office. USNI News reports that the new N99 position will exist alongside the service’s existing directorates of surface, air, and undersea warfare as part of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) staff.

In his April speech, Mabuss also said that along with the new N99 directorate, he would appoint a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy [DASN] for Unmanned Systems.

USNI News notes that the new N99 office will likely pull the Navy’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) effort from OPNAV’s N2/N6 Information Dominance information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) portfolio. Surface and subsurface unmanned vehicles are overseen by several other agencies throughout the Navy.

The precise scope of Girrier’s portfolio has not yet been made piblic.

“While it’s too early to discuss specifics, what I can tell you is that we are in the initial steps of realigning unmanned responsibilities within the Navy Staff and look forward to discussing further once briefed and finalized by leadership,” Lt. Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman told USNI News.