Huntington Ingalls Industries has announced that Proteus, its dual-mode undersea vehicle, successfully completed autonomous contested battlespace missions during the 2017 Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (Panama City Division).
During ANTX, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, in cooperation with HII, Battelle, Northrop Grumman and Riptide Autonomous Solutions, conducted aerial, surface and underwater vehicle advance mission capability demonstrations through relevant operational scenarios while communicating real-time mission performance to remote operations headquarters. The underwater mission segment focused on Proteus’ unmanned missions capabilities.
Proteus, developed by HII’s Technical Solutions division (Undersea Solutions Group) and Battelle, entered a contested battlespace to deliver and launch three smaller unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) with unique roles in the overall mission objective. When launched, Riptide’s micro-UUVs and Northrop Grumman’s REMUS UUV successfully executed unique mission plans according to their onboard sensors and payloads to investigate and prepare the contested battlespace.
“ANTX provided us an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Proteus’ capabilities to Navy leadership, the Navy technical community and our industry partners as we work to meet the Navy's future requirements,” said Ross Lindman, director of operations, Undersea Solutions Group. “We are very pleased with how Proteus performed during the exercise.”
Undersea Solutions Group (USG), part of the Fleet Support group in HII’s Technical Solutions division, develops and builds specialized manned and unmanned undersea vehicles for military customers around the world. USG has built or converted specialized craft for a variety of purposes, including support of submersibles and submarines, special warfare, testing of mine warfare systems, torpedo countermeasures and more. Originally established in 1972, USG operates in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Battelle is an industry leader in innovative and reliable undersea technology providing rapid development, transition and deployment of technologies to sustain U.S. undersea dominance.
Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in autonomous systems, cyber, C4ISR, strike, and logistics and modernization to customers worldwide.