The speed at which drones went from classified military platforms to ubiquitous consumer products is staggering, and the next chapter in that proliferation is starting to unfold. Its location? The sea. Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) are essentially drone ships. They bring a lot of the capabilities that were developed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – such as a high degree of versatility, long operational times, and a scalable amount of autonomy – to the nautical arena.
As was the case for aerial drones, USVs have their origins within the military, and much of the work done to improve their capabilities was undertaken in order to improve their effectiveness for military use. Brad Pilsl, an Unmanned Systems Strategic Lead with Booz Allen Hamilton, told The Cipher Brief that the military aspects of USV development are tied into an emerging concept in the U.S. Navy called Distributed Lethality.
The Distributed Lethality concept is primarily focused on enhancing the combat effectiveness of individual ships and then utilizing them in dispersed formations to avoid providing adversaries with tightly grouped targets. Within the context of Distributed Lethality, USVs play a variety of roles, ranging from providing mobile command and control links, to providing sensor coverage in areas covered by satellite jammers, to acting as weapons platforms, as well as providing mine warfare and anti-submarine capabilities. And, as with UAVs, they can do all this without risking the lives of their operators.
However, the military is not the only one currently exploring the potential uses unmanned ships. There are some commercial entities that view the potential for unmanned shipping with a great deal of interest. Over 90 percent of the world’s trade is carried by ships, and autonomous or remote controlled shipping vessels could provide an array of benefits to the maritime shipping industry.
For example, unmanned ships would have less to fear from pirates, since there would be no crewmen at risk. Additionally, removing the crew would allow for newer and far more efficient ship designs. As a result, “an autonomous general cargo vessel might reduce transport costs by approximately 20 percent compared to a more traditional vessel,” according to Oskar Levander, Vice-President for Innovation, Engineering & Technology – Marine at Rolls-Royce. However, there are issues regarding insurance that will still need to be resolved before large-scale commercial use can be fully realized – as many insurers currently require the ships they underwrite to be manned.
It is tempting to try and predict the potential growth of the USV market based on the experience of UAVs. While there are many parallels between the two, the differences are large enough to ensure that the USV market will grow differently. UAVs had the advantage of a larger potential market of recreational users – they massively opened up access to airspace for a large number of people. At the same time, UAVs have not yet been able to make a large impact in the commercial shipping sector, despite a great deal of effort from companies like Amazon.
USVs, in contrast, have fewer recreational applications, but the difference is likely to be made up for by commercial sales. According to Pilsl, “the market for USVs should be one of the fastest growing segments of the unmanned market over the next several years,” driven largely by demand from the maritime shipping industry, the oil and gas industry, and civil administrative authorities.
USVs have not yet hit their stride in the same way that UAVs have, but they will likely be coming into their own sometime in the next 5-10 years. The Navy’s interest in expanding use of unmanned systems is a primary driver of this trend, but so is intense interest from industry.
The rising tensions in the South China Sea, and a more confrontational stance from China in general, both play into the broader strategic re-focus on the Asia-Pacific region for the Navy, and USVs are poised to provide it with a critical suite of capabilities.
For industry, the world has had time to start adjusting to unmanned systems due to the rise of UAVs, and there are signs that the regulations that currently prevent the commercial entities from using USVs for shipping may be changed in the next few years. While USVs have garnered less attention than their aerial cousins, it seems likely that they will have just as much of an impact moving forward.
Luke Penn-Hall is the Cyber and Technology Producer at The Cipher Brief.
