Unmanned Surface Vehicle Mariner Next Ghost Fleet Vessel to Join the Navy
By: Mallory Shelbourne
August 23, 2022 7:44 PM
USV Mariner on Aug. 23, 2022. USNI News Photo
ABOARD OVERLORD USV MARINER IN ANNAPOLIS, MD., – In a small ceremony on Tuesday, the Navy christened its latest Ghost Fleet Overlord unmanned surface vehicle, putting the service on a path to ramp up autonomy experimentation with its fleet of USVs.
Mariner, which Gulf Craft built on spec at its Franklin, La., facility under prime contractor Leidos, will help the Navy advance testing for the autonomous technology needed for USVs. It will also add to the wide array of commercial systems – like sensors, satellite links, radars and communications suites – that the Navy is experimenting with across its fleet of USVs.
“Besides this platform doing a lot of work in … allowing us to test and mature basically our system engineering pillars – which are really applicable to no matter what we built, whether it’s [Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle] or MUSVs or something else – a lot of the basics here, the perception and the autonomy, the reliable machinery, almost all of that can cross over between those classes. The real differences are the size of the engines,” Rear Adm. Casey Moton, the program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, told reporters on Tuesday.
https://news.usni.org/2022/08/23/unmanned-surface-vehicle-mariner-next-ghost-fleet-vessel-to-join-the-navy
