US Navy’s unmanned vessel plans need improvement, watchdog agency says
Geoff Ziezulewicz
Thu, April 7, 2022, 5:48 PM·3 min read
While the U.S. Navy is steaming full speed ahead in developing unmanned surface and undersea drones to augment the fleet of the future, the information technology and artificial intelligence that will drive these platforms remains a work in progress. The sea service needs to better map out its efforts, according to a government watchdog report released this week.
Navy shipbuilding plans call for spending more than $4 billion on such drones over the next five years, but that plan “does not account for the full costs to develop and operate these systems,” a Government Accountability Office report found.
Replacing crews requires IT and AI capabilities that the Navy has only begun to assess, according to GAO.
“While the Navy has established strategic objectives for these efforts, it has not established a management approach that orients its individual uncrewed maritime efforts toward achieving those objectives,” the report states. “As such, the Navy is not measuring its progress, such as building the robust information technology needed to operate the vehicles.”
GAO’s audit began in October 2020 and concluded this month.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-navy-unmanned-vessel-plans-214855769.html
