Business · The Register
Pentagon wants to water down drone program with autonomous subs
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DARPA's Deep Thoughts program, for which the agency issued a solicitation on Thursday, is looking to change the autonomous undersea vehicle (AUV, not to be confused with unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs) paradigm by developing a new generation of compact AUVs that can reach full
Key facts
- The Defense Department further confirmed its shift to adopt an AI-first warfighting model, requesting a $54 billion budget for its Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG)
- DARPA is giving Deep Thoughts participants 24 months to come up with their new designs, with work projected to start this November. ®
- The Defense Department has also confirmed that it fielded a domestically built system modeled on Iran's Shahed-136 one-way attack drone
- The Pentagon's research arm also wants a "multi-level secure" digital engineering environment that supports CI/CD/CP workflows, protects intellectual property, and works across multiple
Summary
Deep-ocean exploration has to contend with plenty of challenges, intense water pressure chief among them, which makes successful seafloor-capable craft - manned or unmanned - difficult, slow, and expensive to build. "The program will leverage advancements in materials, manufacturing, and next-generation structural and mechanical design technologies to dramatically reduce the size, cost, and development time of deep-ocean systems," the agency said of the program.
To accomplish that, DARPA is seeking ideas that promote the use of novel materials, alloys, and structural geometries, which likely won't include the use of carbon fiber hulls.