DARPA’s Hydra program plans to deploy UAVs and UUVs



By Holly Gonzalez



DARPA announced 23 July that it is developing a program to use Hydra UUV submersible transport to deploy unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles near shallow coastal waters and harbors. 



The Hydra program will have the capacity to support an airborne, surface or subsurface mission. 



The air vehicle payload will consist of encapsulated air vehicles. The undersea payloads will be able to launch, dock, recharge, and obtain data to download and communicate. 



The Hydra program will undergo three phases: defining concepts, developing component capabilities and reduce subsystem risks.



DARPA will brief on the program on 5 Aug. from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Md. For more information, see DARPA’s Hydra Proposer’s Day solicitation on FedBizOpps.gov.