Tag Archives: Snakehead LDUUV

Navy

Snakehead

A U.S. Navy team led by NUWC Division Newport staff demonstrated an end-to-end Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPOE) mission with the Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV) prototype at the Narragansett Bay Test Facility on July 21.

Snakehead LDUUV
Deployable from the dry deck shelter of a submarine, Snakehead provides guidance and control, navigation, situational awareness, propulsion, maneuvering and sensors in support of the intelligence preparation of the operational environment mission. The large displacement unmanned undersea vehicle has undergone tests recently at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport’s Narragansett Bay Test Facility in Rhode Island

The Snakehead LDUUV conducted a long distance ingress, performed a sonar survey box, and then egressed back to the test facility, demonstrating a new milestone in total sortie endurance. The sortie, conducted with the Draper Laboratory-developed Maritime Open Architecture Autonomy, successfully collected sonar data utilizing technology from the Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory.

Snakehead, a modular, reconfigurable, multi-mission LDUUV deployable from submarines and surface ships, provides guidance and control, navigation, situational awareness, propulsion, maneuvering, and sensors in support of the IPOE mission. Snakehead is innovative in the areas of hull materials, lithium-ion battery certification, advanced sensors, and launch and recovery from both submarines and surface vessels.

The accomplishment of this mission in the system’s intended operational environment was a big step for the program to gain confidence in the vehicle software and hardware systems, as the team pushes toward extended endurance operations and layering additional system capability, said Chris DelMastro, head of the Undersea Warfare Platforms and Payload Integration Department.

The IPOE mission is a critical step toward understanding an area of interest and feeds into planning a relevant course of action to support the warfighter.

To date, Snakehead has conducted 155 in-water sorties and more than 78 hours of runtime utilizing a government-owned and controlled modular open system architecture to include vehicle controller software; autonomy software; and command, control, and communications software – TopsideC3 – for mission planning, operations and analysis.

Since last year, the team conducted up to 190 hours of simulations using full-up vehicle hardware-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop simulation tools. These simulated missions ensure the software operates as intended and that mission parameters are set correctly and confirmed by the vehicle.

«The success of Snakehead testing is a direct result of the time and energy spent designing the vehicle. In-lab hardware and software simulations are major contributors to the success in water», said Allison Philips, Division Newport’s test and evaluation lead for Snakehead.

«The testing to date has demonstrated a baseline capability», said Cheryl Mierzwa, Division Newport’s technical program manager for Snakehead. «Future testing will provide additional capability, autonomy, and endurance to discover the system utility».

Navy

Snakehead LDUUV

A Navy team led by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport and the Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC) conducted a vehicle christening for the first Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV) prototype February 2 at the Narragansett Bay Test Facility in Newport, Rhode Island.

Snakehead LDUUV
Navy team christens first Snakehead advanced undersea vehicle prototype

Snakehead is a modular, reconfigurable, multi-mission LDUUV deployed from submarine large ocean interfaces. It is equipped with a government-owned architecture, mission autonomy capabilities and vehicle software, employing innovation in the areas of hull materials and lithium-ion battery certification. Deployed from a submarine dry deck shelter, Snakehead provides guidance and control, navigation, situational awareness, propulsion, maneuvering and sensors in support of undersea missions.

The Navy continues to invest in a family of Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs) to meet the mission requirements for maintaining undersea domain superiority. Snakehead is the Navy’s largest submarine-launched UUV, providing increased endurance, depth capability, and payload capacity beyond small and medium UUVs.

PEO USC is responsible for driving the majority of the Navy’s acquisition, development, delivery and sustainment of unmanned surface and undersea platforms, along with the development of key enabling technologies to support advanced autonomy operations.