The USA is pushing ahead with the development of autonomous maritime systems. The USX-1 Defiant, a newly launched unmanned water vehicle (USV), marks the start of testing a new generation of autonomous ship platforms for military and scientific missions.
A central aim of the USX-1 Defiant is to break with the previous rule that unmanned systems are often not more cost-effective than their manned counterparts.
The project originates from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). As part of the NOMARS program (“No Manning Required Ship”), a ship is being developed that can carry out long missions at sea completely autonomously and without human presence on board.
The unmanned system is expected to spend up to 90 percent of its operating time at sea.
A test phase lasting several months will now begin. The first stage will be sea trials, which will last around two months and focus on proving seaworthiness.
This will be followed by a comprehensive demonstration and operational test of the USX-1 Defiant. This process will take considerably longer, as the performance of the system will be tested under real operating conditions.
The overarching goal is to develop a fleet of unmanned ships that can be mass-produced and used for a wide range of military and scientific missions.
Nothing is yet known about the armament and avionics of the new Defiant drone. The few available images and videos only show the system under large tarpaulins, which means that technical details remain hidden.
However, previous Defiant concept models have been created as both graphical representations and physical models using an Adaptable Deck Launcher (ADL) module from BAE Systems were shown.
According to BAE Systems, the ADL module is capable of firing different types of missiles from different platforms, thus covering a wide range of operational scenarios.
The platform is also intended to serve as a carrier system for a 40-foot ISO standard sea container. On this basis, there are numerous studies on launch systems that could integrate a wide range of weapon systems.
The possible deployment scenarios range from surface-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles to cruise missiles and even ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
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