DARPA’s NOMARS developing long endurance Autonomous warship for surveillance, targeting, electronic warfare and strike warfare – International Defense Security & Technology
DARPA’s NOMARS developing long
endurance Autonomous warship for surveillance, targeting, electronic warfare
and strike warfare
IDST – International Defence, Security and Technology
by Rajesh Uppal1h
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DARPA NOMARS Defiant
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In 2018, China surpassed the U.S.
Navy as the world’s largest naval force. China has now launched a new
“world-leading unmanned warship” that is supposedly ready for combat, Chinese
media reports. The JARI multi-purpose unmanned combat vessel, a new product of
the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, is 50 feet in length
and displaces 20 tons. Chinese media reports that this ship is capable of
conducting the same missions as China’s Type 052 destroyers, namely
air-defense, anti-ship and anti-submarine missions.
Chinese military observers refer to
China’s latest development as a “mini Aegis-class destroyer” because of its
radars, vertically-launched missiles and torpedoes, the Global Times reports,
referencing the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, many of which are
equipped with powerful Aegis radars, surface-to-air missiles, and
anti-submarine warfare capabilities. The JARI can, the Global Times reports, be
controlled remotely or operate autonomously, although more testing is required
before it can fully do the latter. Chinese military analysts have talked about
this vessel being used with other drone ships to create a swarm.
The US is pushing for the
development of unmanned vessels as part of its goal to expand the US Navy and
allow for more distributed operations in wide areas like the Pacific. The US
military has experimented with small crewless swarm boats, as well as
medium-sized unmanned surface vessels like the Sea Hunter. Navy is aggressively
seeks unmanned vehicle technology and pursues multiple USV programs as it
experiments with a new fleet architecture. Defense Secretary Mark Esper
recently called for the Navy to build toward a fleet of more than 500 ships
that would include a mix of both manned and unmanned vessels.
That has led the U.S. Navy to
aggressively push toward an LUSV equipped with a vertical launching system, or
VLS, to get the punch of a missile-shooting frigate for less money. “We can’t
continue to wrap $2 billion ships around 96 missile tubes in the numbers we
need to fight in a distributed way against a potential adversary that is
producing capability and platforms at a very high rate of speed,” the U.S.
Navy’s top officer, Adm. Michael Gilday, said in recent comments. Senior Navy
officials have talked about the LUSV as a kind of external missile magazine
that can autonomously navigate to and integrate with the force, then shoot its
missiles and return for reload, keeping the big manned surface combatants in
the fight and fielded longer.
The U.S. Navy is enthusiastically
pursuing a new architecture for its surface and subsurface fleets that
gradually reduces dependence on expensive manned platforms for many traditional
functions like surveillance, targeting, electronic warfare and strike warfare.
But one of the issues with that architecture is the problem of maintaining them
without a crew aboard.
In recent years DARPA has spent
considerable efforts on the development of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) with
the agency previously developing the 40m-long Sea Hunter platform and the
Improved Navy Lighterage System (INLS). INLS, known as “Sea Train”, is designed
to use a mix of powered and unpowered USVs to transport equipment and supplies.
“Sea Hunter was the first
large (greater than 100-ton displacement) USV. Just as DARPA has had many UAV
[unmanned aerial vehicle] programs that occurred after ‘Amber’ (which wasn’t
the first UAV to fly), similarly the department may choose to have multiple USV
[unmanned surface vessels] programs to tackle hard development problems. “The
ACTUV program (Sea Hunter was the name of the ship, not the program)
explored the development of the first USV. That doesn’t mean all the hard
problems are solved.
The US Defence Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) has now launched No Manning Required, Ship
(NOMARS) programme with a broad agency announcement (BAA). Under NOMARS, DARPA
is seeking a vessel that could operate completely unmanned at sea for extended
periods of time. DARPA said in the BAA it wants to ‘explore the NOMARS design
space from Conceptual Design Review (CoDR) through Preliminary Design Review
(PDR) and system definition.’
“As for the `Is Sea
Hunter for weapons and NOMARS for logistics?’ question: No –
they are both platforms that can carry payload. Ultimately what payload
the US Navy would have future generations of USVs carry is part of their
decision space, but there is nothing unique to the NOMARS philosophy that makes
it more compatible with warfighting payloads vs. logistics payloads.”
The agency is looking for
potential vessel which would challenge the ‘traditional naval architecture
paradigm’ by creating a ship that eliminates all the design considerations
associated with housing a crew. DARPA has set aside $41m for the development of
the programme and design of the NOMARS platform, which should be able to
operate for up to a year at sea before requiring maintenance. The agency at
this time does not plan to build an operational vessel, but rather an ‘X-ship’
demonstrator that can be used as a proof of concept for the NOMARS.
NOMARS
program
The No Manning Required Ship(NOMARS) program seeks to design a ship that can operate autonomously for long
durations at sea, enabling a clean-sheet ship design process that eliminates
design considerations associated with crew. NOMARS focuses on exploring novel
approaches to the design of the seaframe (the ship without mission systems)
while accommodating representative payload size, weight, and power.
By removing the human element from
all ship design considerations, the program intends to demonstrate significant
advantages, to include size, cost, at-sea reliability, survivability to
sea-state, and survivability to adversary actions such as stealth
considerations and resistance to tampering. The program also will strive for
greater hydrodynamic efficiency via hull optimization without requirements for
crew safety or comfort.
NOMARS is focused solely on the
design of a novel sea frame rather than a vessel complete with mission systems,
but DARPA added the notional payload space is 23ft by 12ft by 9ft. Avicola
described the program as an experiment in putting aside some of the traditional
elements of designing ships because NOMARS won’t be developed around the needs
of people aboard.
“NOMARS is not a barge; it is a MUSV
[medium-sized unmanned surface vessel]. DARPA is attempting to develop a
next-generation MUSV class that has significantly higher reliability and
availability, and carry significant payload for its size.
Leveraging any existing design would defeat the purpose of the DARPA
program.” “NOMARS is a demonstrator of a next-generation USV. It is
not focused on any specific mission, and has enough design flexibility that
acquisition designs could conduct a number of different operations.”
One of the problems that have
plagued the early tests in unmanned vessels is the lack of crew aboard to
diagnose issues and undertake basic maintenance. For example, during the recent
record-setting Atlantic crossing by the Mayflower MAS 400 autonomous ship, when
sensors detected a problem the teams managing the vessel were forced to divert
first to the Azores and then to Canada.
Recognizing these issues, DARPA says
that NOMARS is pushing the boundaries on ship reliability. Because there is no
crew on board to perform maintenance, NOMARS required new approaches for power
generation, propulsion, machinery line-up, and control schemes to ensure
continuous functionality throughout a long mission in all weather, temperature,
and sea states.
Specifically, NOMARS is addressing
the ‘next-gen’ problem of designing and demonstrating a USV that is optimized
for three design considerations simultaneously: 1) Optimizing unmanned ship
design for maximum performance when all human survivability constraints are
removed from the platform (there will be no people on NOMARS at any time when
away from the pier); 2) Maximizing the reliability of the design, with the goal
that the ship can operate for a year between maintenance cycles; and 3)
maximizing the maintainability of the design – e.g. when the ship goes into
port for a maintenance cycle, how do we design the ship to make that
turn-around as cost efficient and scalable as possible, enabling a future with
large numbers of such ships? Building a design that is good at all of
these things simultaneously is a hard problem that is beyond the scope of any
existing ship design and certainly is different from all the unmanned ships
that currently exist.
To get after that aspect, the NOMARS
program is going to split into two tracks.
“Track A (Integrated Seaframe Design
and Maintenance) will create a framework to evaluate potential design trades
against performance requirements, both in terms of the design of the human-less
seaframe, as well as the maintenance architectures that would be needed to
operate the seaframe,” the solicitation read.
“Track B (Enabling Sub-system
Technologies) will allow for agile development of relevant subsystem
technologies, with a focus on self-adaptive health management for systems
relevant to and of similar complexity as that associated with the hull,
mechanical, and electrical systems of a seaframe.”
Nomars
Awards
DARPA has awarded seven contracts
for work on Phase 1 of the NOMARS program, which seeks to simultaneously
explore two competing objectives related to unmanned surface vessels (USV) ship
design: (1) the maximization of seaframe performance when human constraints are
removed; and (2) achieving sufficient vessel maintenance and logistics
functionality for long endurance operations with no human crew onboard. NOMARS
aims to disrupt conventional naval architecture designs through creative trade
space explorations that optimize useable onboard room considering a variety of
constraints. This should pave the way for more capable, affordable small
warships that can be procured and maintained in large numbers.
Track A is starting from scratch to
pursue a new ship design and track B focuses more on individual technologies
that could be employed on NOMARS or manned ships, Avicola said.
Autonomous Surface Vehicles, LLC,
Gibbs & Cox Inc., and Serco Inc. received Phase 1 Track A awards, and will
work toward developing novel NOMARS demonstrator conceptual designs. These
awards will focus on maximizing vessel performance gain across new design criteria,
with potential considerations to include: unusual hull forms, low freeboard,
minimizing air-filled volumes, innovative materials, repurposing or eliminating
“human space” exploring distributed system designs, and developing
architectures optimized for depot-maintenance.
The DLBA division of Gibbs & Cox
was selected by DARPA to explore the trade space for clean-sheet vessel designs
developed without any provision for crew on board. The intent of the effort is
to create a paradigm shift in the design of marine surface vehicles as the
industry transitions from manned to unmanned platforms, while leveraging newly
established and developmental technologies to increase capability, increase
reliability, and reduce total ownership cost.
DLBA have assembled a team of
subject matter experts and industry leaders to explore the many research areas
of this program, some of which are: hull, mechanical and electrical systems;
self-adaptive health monitoring and predictive analytics; power generation,
distribution, and energy storage; as well as advanced depot-based maintenance
concepts. The company will assess the interdependencies of the technical
domains and evaluate each domain against overarching variables of cost,
endurance, reliability, and manufacturability to ensure that the vessel design
is optimized in all aspects of performance, production, and maintainability.
Barnstorm Research Corporation and
TDI Technologies, Inc. received Phase 1 Track B awards, and will develop robust
approaches to ship health-monitoring via novel Self-Adaptive Health Management
(SAHM) architectures, which will be pivotal to achieving NOMARS at-sea
endurance and reliability objectives. InMar Technologies and Siemens
Corporation also received Phase 1 Track B awards; the former will develop new
techniques for morphing hull structures to maximize performance, while the
latter will implement toolsets previously developed through the DARPA TRADES
program to design optimized material structures for novel NOMARS ship concepts.
NOMARS is expected to uncover future
benefits through improved understanding and design of unmanned surface
warships. In Phase 1, performers will conduct large trade space exploration
studies which will provide insights and tools for future USV ship development
programs. Following this, Phases 2 and 3 of the program will build prototype
hardware demonstrating some of these concepts, culminating in an “X-ship”
seaframe that can be used for demonstration, testing, and future ship design
experiments.
The companies exploring potential
designs do not need to account for passageways for people to move through,
maintenance areas crew members could access, and the potential for seasickness,
he noted. “All of those aspects go into ship designs. And so there are
well-known naval architecture rules of thumb and design principles that naval
architects use to design ships,” Avicola said. “We’re basically saying, start
from a clean sheet of paper and examine all of those design choices, with this
other question in mind — how do you make the ship reliable without any human
movements and how do you design the ship so it’s maximally efficient if you
don’t have to worry about all that stuff I just told you about.”
NOMARS isn’t only focused on the
ship. The goal for NOMARS is two-fold. In addition to seeking a ship design
created without considerations for humans onboard, DARPA is also exploring how
it can maintain an unmanned ship that performs lengthy transits and does not
need humans to perform the sustainment work while on the vessel.
Understanding how unmanned ships can
be optimally designed for cost-effective, scalable maintenance is a critical
piece of the design trades being explored. At the conclusion of this program,
it is envisioned that NOMARS will have significantly improved our knowledge and
understanding of how to build large numbers of affordable and reliable unmanned
warships. This, along with insights about ways flotillas of such ships can be
effectively maintained and operated, will enable new capabilities for the U.S.
Navy.
Avicola described the track B
awards, which went to five different companies, as having a “narrower” focus
than the pursuit of a wholly new ship design in track A. “If a performer —
let’s say had a novel engine technology for the sake of argument — that they
thought might make a difference, they could have proposed that to a Track B
proposal, which is not the entire trade space.” Avicola said, providing a
hypothetical example.
“But we could fund that research
with the idea that it would either affect ships in general, and therefore be
useful to the Navy, or specifically, could enable the NOMARS future ship
designs by exploring that technology and bringing it to a level where one of
the Track A performers could incorporate that into their design, if they
thought there was merit to do so,” he continued. “That’s really the difference
between track A and track B.”
“Barnstorm Research Corporation and
TDI Technologies, Inc. received Phase 1 Track B awards, and will develop robust
approaches to ship health-monitoring via novel Self-Adaptive Health Management
(SAHM) architectures, which will be pivotal to achieving NOMARS at-sea endurance
and reliability objectives,” DARPA said in the release. “InMar Technologies and
Siemens Corporation also received Phase 1 Track B awards; the former will
develop new techniques for morphing hull structures to maximize performance,
while the latter will implement toolsets previously developed through the DARPA
TRADES program to design optimized material structures for novel NOMARS ship
concepts.”
In describing the portion of NOMARS
devoted to the maintenance of unmanned vessels, Avicola compared the ships to
aviation platforms. While unmanned and manned aircraft typically require a
similar maintenance structure – where a ground crew provides sustainment in
between sorties – Avicola said unmanned ships “break the paradigm” because
while manned vessels are maintained by the crew aboard, the NOMARS concept
removes the crew from the equation.
“So now we take a ship that goes out
to sea for some period of time –say months — comes back to port, and now a
ground crew swarms over it, so it’s more like the airplane model, right? So how
do you design the ship, so that it can be accessible to that maintenance
paradigm where you maintain it from the outside in between sorties? Our sorties
are months, not hours or days, but it’s still the same idea,” Avicola said. “And
let’s say you had 50 ships that you want to maintain at any given period of
time, how do you make it so that it’s almost like an assembly line process, so
that it’s amicable to scaling?”
“So you bring the ship into a depot
– you know this is completely notional, right — this is something that the
performers are going to go explore. But imagine — as an idea — that you bring
the ship to the pier, you lift the ship out of water because they’re not very
big ships,” he continued. “You’ve seen boat hoists lift fishing boats out of
the water — same kind of thing – maybe I lift it out of the water, put it on a
pad, and then somehow I take it apart, do whatever I need to do, put it back
together, put it back in the water.”
Should companies succeed in the
trade study work, Avicola said the program would ideally lead to a second and
third phase in which DARPA would seek proposals and ultimately a prototype of a
vessel that meets the design requirements the companies explored in the first
phase. “If we can fundamentally redesign how unmanned ships are designed
compared to — if we can unlearn all the lessons we’ve learned for manned ships
that are no longer applicable for unmanned ships, we very well might have
enabled that vision of larger fleets of cost-effective unmanned ships that the
Navy keeps describing, and I think that’s a very exciting goal,” Avicola said.
Serco
completes US DARPA NOMARS Phase 1A concept design
Technology and management services
provider Serco has completed Phase 1A concept design work for a US Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) programme, reported in Sep
2021. In addition, DARPA down selected Serco’s Voyager team for the
programme’s Phase 1B preliminary design work.
Serco Lead Reliability Engineer Ryan
Maatta said: “We really wanted to push the limits with this design, and DARPA
has structured this contract in a way that allows us the freedom to consider a
wide range of traditional and emergent technologies, it really is an exciting
time to be in the field, it’s the kind of work that if you are lucky comes
around a few times in a career and really makes it all worth it, we have a
great group of engineers and sharp industry partners.”
Serco used their DSX tool to create
a set of ship designs ranging from 170-270 metric tons, then refined those into
a single ship for the preliminary design review, which the company named
Defiant.
In Phase 2 of the program, Serco
will finalize ship design, build the ship, and work through a series of
rigorous testing activities before taking it to sea for a three-month
demonstration event.
Transition
to Navy
“Ultimately DARPA is building a
NOMARS demonstrator – we don’t do ‘production runs.’ The goal for NOMARS is to
demonstrate a next-generation USV [unmanned surface vessel] capability that
could be transitioned for a large production run if that’s what’s decided after
demonstration of the concept.”
Gregory Avicola, the NOMARS program
manager, told USNI News in a recent interview that DARPA has had conversations
with Navy offices like PMS-406, the service’s program executive office for
unmanned and small combatants, and the Surface Development Squadron, which has
been tasked with developing the concept of operations for unmanned surface
vehicles, since the agency started the NOMARS initiative.
“If we do have a really successful
program, how do we transition it? The answer is — so far — what we’ve been
doing is have closely linked coordination with the Navy offices that care about
this sort of stuff. So PMS-406, in particular, we’ve been bringing along for
all of our technical discussions. And when we get to phase two, we expect to
partner up with them in terms of making sure that the [request for proposals]
we put out has things that are crucial in there . . . if we’re going to go do
demonstrations with them, things like that,” Avicola said.
“We’ve been talking to SURFDEVRON,
which would be — that’s the Surface Development Squadron — which would be in
charge of testing and experimentation with the ship once DARPA’s done with it,
presumably,” he continued. “So making sure that they’re part of the process…
from the very beginning so that they know what we’re doing, and they have the
ability to give us their thoughts and help guide the program, to a certain
extent.”
PMS-406 is overseeing Navy programs
like the Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle and MUSV, while SURFDEVRON One
currently has a Sea Hunter prototype that originated as a DARPA program.
SURFDEVRON One is slated to receive a second Sea Hunter this fiscal year, as it
continues experimentation.
Thrustmaster
to Supply Propulsion
Thrustmaster of Texas, Inc. announce
it is providing a customized thruster propulsion system to SERCO, Inc. in
support of its recently awarded No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) contract from
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The advanced platform design has
been developed by SERCO to meet the performance requirements established by
DARPA to demonstrate true unmanned operations for extended time periods.
Joe Bekker, president of
Thrustmaster of Texas, said, “The thruster system developed for the NOMARS
platform uses a combination of proven and highly reliable thruster component
technologies with an innovative hydrodynamic design that allows for the
thruster to support not only critical propulsion requirements but also to meet
additional maneuvering and endurance requirements.”
Bekker said Thrustmaster will
support thruster design and production as well as the initial NOMARS system
level testing at its 300,000-square-foot facility in Houston.
References
and Resources also include:
https://news.usni.org/2020/10/27/darpa-testing-the-limits-of-unmanned-ships-in-new-nomars-program
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/07/darpa-updates-on-its-sea-train-and-nomars-usvs/
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