Unmanned Undersea Vehicles. The Waters are Crowded Places.

Security, Public Safety, Fire & Safety • Dec 27, 2016

If you’ve been keeping up, aerial drones have received a lot of press and sales for that technology have skyrocketed in recent times. I’ll go as far as to predict there’s a likelihood you have spotted drone(s) flying around your neighborhood or local park. Thanks a lot Santa Claus? What about their cousins, also known as, unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV’s)?

Up until a few weeks ago, how much did you know about UUV’s? UUV’s were in the background for a majority of people, myself included, but those days are no more. Disclosure: This admission coming from a guy in a Navy family.

Not long ago, UUV’s were thrusted to the forefront when the Chinese Navy confiscated an underwater drone being operated by the U.S. Navy. Understandably, there was a firestorm of press coverage and an enraged response from U.S. officials. The Washington Post was but one media outlet to report on the events, ‘Pentagon: Chinese naval ship seized an unmanned U.S. underwater vehicle in South China Sea’. Helpful hint: Google “UUV South China Sea” and you’ll see others have weighed in.

Similar to China, you and I can join the fray, speculate and wax poetic on why the U.S. Navy was operating the UUV in the South China Sea. Is Oliver Stone working on his next script? We can answer this question: “Why does the U.S. Navy purchase and deploy unmanned undersea vehicles?” According to ‘The Navy Unmanned Undersea Vehicle(UUV) Master Plan’, published back in 2004, there are a variety of intended uses.

Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
Mine Countermeasures
Anti-Submarine Warfare
Inspection / Identification
Oceanography
Communication / Navigation Network Nodes
Payload Delivery
Information Operations
Time Critical Strike
Barrier Patrol

Messages and forecasts suggest that the public sector investment in UUVs, and related, will not abate anytime soon. Be certain, the United States is not alone. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, is also involved in soliciting and purchasing these solutions/equipment. As far as the U.S., earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced, “…we’re also investing $600 million over the next five years in variable size and variable payload unmanned undersea vehicles – a new capability you’ll be seeing a lot more of.”

With the recent news coming out of the South China Sea, along with industry projections we’ve reviewed, plus the public sector bids/RFP activity we’ve noted in our database, we constructed the following data.

Our analysis reveals there will be a steady rise in public sector investment in drones and UUVs in 2017 and beyond. There will be a premium placed on intelligence and information gathering and these technologies will be a part of that overall strategy.

Research and analysis on purchase request activity: