Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced on April 26 that Proteus, the dual-mode undersea vehicle developed by the company’s Undersea Solutions Group (USG) subsidiary and Battelle, successfully completed endurance testing earlier this month.

The 30-day simulated unmanned mission was performed in a test tank at USG’s Panama City, Florida, facility to demonstrate the vehicle’s reliability and ability to perform long-duration missions contemplated for the U.S. Navy’s future Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs).

Computers in a van beside the test tank fed navigational and depth data to Proteus’ autonomy and vehicle control systems to simulate the vehicle running a mission in open water. All systems necessary for an autonomous mission were operational and responded to commands. During the test, Proteus simulated traveling 2,412 nautical miles/2,776 miles/4,467 km and ran submerged for 720 hours while executing a full range of simulated mission behaviors.

«HII is committed to developing undersea technologies and systems that support the increased employment of UUVs in the future», said Ross Lindman, USG’s vice president, operations. «This test helps provide reliability data and a technical foundation for development of a new generation of long-endurance UUVs to support the U.S. Navy».

USG develops and builds specialized manned and unmanned undersea vehicles for military customers around the world. USG has built or converted specialized craft for a variety of purposes, including support of submersibles and submarines, special warfare, testing of mine warfare systems, torpedo countermeasures and more. Originally established in 1972, USG operates in Panama City Beach, Florida, and reports to HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding division.

Battelle is an industry leader in innovative and reliable undersea technology providing rapid development, transition and deployment of technologies to sustain U.S. under sea dominance.