Pentagon Agency Plans for Unmanned Ship to Track Submarines

(March 2) -- During the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet submarines engaged in a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek, tracking each other's movements for days and weeks at a time, deep underwater. Now, a Pentagon agency responsible for futuristic research is looking at designing an unmanned ship that could steadily track subs over long distances.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking at concepts for an unmanned surface ship equipped with advanced sensors and an autonomous navigation system. The goal of this program, says DARPA, "is to design, build and demonstrate an X-ship based on clean sheet design approaches founded on the assumption that no person steps aboard at any point in its operating cycle."

French-made Malaysian diesel submarine in September 2009.

Saeed Khan, AFP / Getty Images

The Pentagon is considering designing an unmanned ship to track diesel submarines like the French-made one above. Diesel-powered subs are quiter and tougher to spot than nuclear-fueled ones.

The DARPA project, however, is designed specifically to track diesel submarines, which can alternate between diesel motors and electric propulsion. Diesel submarines are quieter and harder to spot than noisier nuclear submarines, which are fueled by a nuclear reactor.

While nuclear submarines can operate for longer periods of time underwater, in recent years, diesel submarines have emerged as a major threat, according to U.S. Navy officials.

"New ultraquiet diesel-electric submarines armed with deadly torpedoes and cruise missiles are proliferating widely," Rear Adm. Robert T. Moeller, a senior naval official, warned Congress in 2003. "New technologies such as these could significantly threaten our fleet as we deploy around the world to assure access for joint forces, project power from the sea, and maintain open sea lanes for trade."

In theory, freeing a ship of its crew would allow a design that might be faster and more maneuverable, and have longer endurance than manned ships. The unmanned ship envisioned by DARPA would have advanced sensors that would allow it to track these submarines, navigating through the open sea without any human intervention.

Unmanned vehicles aren't new to the U.S. Navy, which has funded development of drones and unmanned vessels. But DARPA said this project would "be a first-of-its-kind unmanned naval vessel" that could deploy and operate independently at sea.