The utility and effectiveness of Unmanned Vehicle systems is clearly recognized by DoD and thernmilitary services. Currently, most Unmanned Sea Vehicles (USVs) are based on small,rncommercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) boats designed to meet certain human-based factors and arernnot designed for a wide range of Naval missions. As such, their performance in terms of speed,rnseakeeping, payload capability, endurance, towing capacity, and adaptability to varied missionsrnis not optimized. The Unmanned Sea Surface Vehicles (USSV) Science and Technology (S&T)rnprogram will focus on the development of technologies to extend the capabilities of USVs forrnNaval missions and to better enable the development of purpose-built USVs. The emphasis willrnbe on vehicle design, launch and retrieval, autonomy/cooperative behavior and vehicle/payloadrnreconfigurability. The objective of the program is to understand and demonstrate: (1) USVrnconcepts of operation, (2) effectiveness of purpose-built USVs, (3) automated launch andrnretrieval of USVs and (4) autonomous operations of USVs.
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