New Manned-Unmanned Underwater Communications

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The US Department of Defense is planning to establish a new underwater network architecture designed to control rapidly reconfigurable military forces under, on, and over the ocean. The project emphasizes undersea communications, as well as communications among manned and unmanned submarines, surface vessels, aircraft, and satellites, according to militaryaerospace.com.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will promote, in collaboration with the industry, the technology through the TIMEly project (Timely Information for Maritime Engagements.)

U.S. military officials are trying to create rapidly reconfigurable military forces that move quickly, adapt to changing circumstances, and continue to function efficiently even though some segments may disappear or be called away to higher-priority missions.

The TIMEly project takes this concept of “mosaic warfare” into consideration, but emphasizes underwater assets like manned submarines and UUVs to provide options on the fly for carrying out different missions.

The program is intended “to develop concepts for a heterogeneous underwater network architecture [with the goal] to enable the vision of mosaic warfare facilitated by the contemporaneous composition of effects chains from available assets in any domain, but with an emphasis on the underwater domain”.

According to janes.com, mosaic warfare is an operational concept being pursued by DARPA Strategic Technology Office that seeks to shift away from a primary emphasis on highly capable manned systems – typically characterized by high costs and long development timelines – to a force mix of manned and less-expensive unmanned systems that can be rapidly developed, fielded, and upgraded with new technology to address evolving threats.