by AUVSI News 

Budget was the key word on the first day of Unmanned System Defense, AUVSI’s three-day event that kicked off today in Arlington, Virginia, in close proximity to the Pentagon.



The conference’s Maritime Day occurred mere hours after a budget proposal by Congress that would set spending through September 2017 and raise the spending caps that resulted in deep defense budget cuts in 2011. 



The defense budget in dollars adjusted for inflation since 2011 is down 15 percent, according to Justin T. Johnson, senior policy analyst for defense budget policy at The Heritage Foundation. 



“By almost every measure, our military today is smaller than it was on 9/11, and in many cases it’s the smallest it’s been in our history,” he said. The Navy in particular is 14 percent smaller than it was on Sept. 11, 2001, he said. 



He said while unmanned systems have the potential to be cheaper alternatives than manned platforms, it is imperative that companies don’t inflate their savings numbers to be impressive.



“If they are truly affordable, make that case,” he said. 



The Century of the Navy

Despite Johnson’s shrinking Navy numbers, keynote speaker Ray Mabus, secretary of the Navy, said we’re living in the maritime world’s most robust era, with the vast majority of trade and telecommunications transmissions occurring on and in the ocean. 



“What we uniquely provide is presence, being at the right place, not just at the right time, but all the time.”



He warned while unmanned systems are in their heyday, especially commercially, this jolt to the market means people around the world, who may not have the best intentions, have access to similar technology too. 



“The technology being developed in the commercial world is great stuff, but in more nefarious hands can be used for bad reasons by adversaries,” he said. “As a military force, we absolutely cannot afford to lose in this realm. And as you know, we’ve been at this for a while.”



To better leverage unmanned systems’ place in this scenario, Mabus said he announced in April a realignment, where activity will occur under a director of unmanned systems warfare. 



Today, he announced Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Frank Kelley will serve as the Navy’s new deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for unmanned systems, the first person to hold that post.



“My goal was to streamline our current structure and drive a strategy for the development of these systems that’s thoughtful,” he said.



One method to stay competitive is to leverage power and energy to persistently look at the maritime domain. 



“We can develop platforms that stretch the bounds of imagination,” he said, particularly related to endurance. “… Our UUVs need to be able to stay out for months at a time.” 



He also pointed to technology innovations as a way to stay on top. To demonstrate, he brought with him the CRACUNS unmanned platform, a low-cost quadcopter that is 3-D printed, “and it can operate for long periods of time under the sea and then pop up and operate above the sea.”



Tackling Problems With Technology

A few speakers discussed just how the technology developments they are overseeing are pertinent to maintaining dominance. 



Tom Dee, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy Expeditionary Program and Logistics Management Office, talked about the incremental approach the Navy used to develop the Mk 18 Unmanned Underwater System. Instead of building an end-all, be-all platform, “we started with a stable and mature platform, and we started adding sensors to it has time went on,” he said. 



This open-architecture approach will allow the Mk 18 to plug and play its way through technology developments with sensors that are inevitable as the system moves toward the acquisition process. 



“It’s all about a balance,” he said. “We don’t have all the money in the world. We have lots of challenges. … We have lots to do.”



Rear Adm. Mathias Winter, chief of naval research, discussed how it’s important when an entity is developing a technology to know what work has already been done in that realm. 



“Nobody asked for an LD UUV [Large-Diameter Unmanned Underwater Vehicle], … but good ideas were knitted together, and as our fleet and our forces saw what was together, it started to get pulled,” he said.



The Office of Naval Research has been developing the platform, which leverages power and energy advancements to provide more persistent underwater surveillance. They are currently integrating new sensors onto the platform, which will begin work as a prototype in this fiscal year. 



“In the power and energy effort, persistence is absolutely key, and that persistence is about being able to stay where you need to be, when you need to be there.”



New Name, New Look

This year marked a change for the 15-years-running conference — a new name. Formerly called Unmanned Systems Program Review, the event is now called Unmanned Systems Defense, a nod to “our industry’s proud history,” said AUVSI President and CEO Brian Wynne. 



Along with that change, AUVSI unveiled a new brand logo that reflects changes in the unmanned systems and robotics industry. 



“The industry is changing, and the association is changing. Our membership continues to grow,” said Wynne. 

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