The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said that it has achieved a major milestone in the Manta Ray program, with Northrop Grumman’s prototype unmanned underwater vehicle having swum its way through a series of critical tests. The development constitutes a significant step in integrating autonomous undersea technologies into the U.S. Navy’s operational framework.
Initiated in 2020, Manta Ray at DARPA is a leading effort to design a new class of UUVs that can perform long-range/long-duration missions. Such a program allows the development of key technologies underpinning advanced energy management techniques, undersea energy harvest, low-power propulsion systems, and advanced methods for underwater detection and hazard classification.
Northrop Grumman’s “extra-large” UUV recently completed “full-scale, in-water testing” off the Southern California coast. Those tests, according to DARPA, proved the vehicle’s hydrodynamic performance, operating submerged on buoyancy, propellers, and control surfaces. “Our successful, full-scale Manta-Ray testing validates the vehicle’s readiness to advance toward real-world operations after being rapidly assembled in the field from modular subsections,” said Kyle Woerner, DARPA program manager for Manta Ray.
The Manta Ray UUV was designed to operate independently for weeks with limited interference or maintenance by man, thus giving the man more capability to reduce logistics demands and free up naval resources. Joseph Deane, program manager of Northrop’s Manta Ray, spoke about the vehicle’s low power use and great capabilities for long-distance coverage autonomously in terms of nobody’s abilities.
The other primary player in the Manta Ray program is PacMar Technologies, together with Northrop Grumman. Last September, PacMar conducted a full-scale in-water “splash test” off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, with sensors tested, along with vehicle hydrodynamic performance and autonomy behaviors. DARPA added that PacMar is still testing its full-scale energy-harvesting system.
The Manta Ray aligns with a bigger Navy vision for a future “hybrid” fleet of both manned and unmanned platforms, supported by emergent technologies in AI and autonomy. Robotic systems, says the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, are a means of putting more players on the field while growing Navy capacity and capability while reducing risks to the Sailors.
In December, the Navy took delivery of its first Orca XLUUV from Boeing for further testing. The diesel-electric submarine was characterized as an “85-ton, 85-feet-long” vessel and was tested at sea performing both above- and below-surface maneuvers. The Navy wants a high-end undersea drone with a modular payload bay that can cover very long distances untethered and can carry out missions like mine-laying without risking sailors doing so.
That’s probably why the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, or DIU awarded contracts to Anduril Industries, Oceaneering International, and Kongsberg Discovery among others to prototype large undersea drones. “Undersea warfare is critical to success in the Pacific and other contested environments, providing needed autonomous underwater sensing and payload delivery in dispersed, long-range, deep and contested environments is key.”
As the Manta Ray program unfolds, DARPA and the Navy are discussing the next plan that includes further testing and technology transfers. To date, the test series of the Manta Ray UUV has proved very successful; this is a strategic game-changer in contested maritime environments for future autonomous operation of underwater vehicles.