Navy

Here’s the DARPA project it says could pull the Navy a decade forward in unmanned technology

A project inside the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has the potential to pull the Navy’s unmanned surface vessel aspirations forward a decade, a senior DARPA official said Wednesday at the annual C4ISR Conference.

DARPA’s effort to develop a ship designed from the keel up to operate without humans, known as “NOMARS” for “no mariners,” is a separate effort from the Navy’s quest to develop a family of large and medium unmanned surface vessels. But the benefits of that program, if successful, could be a giant leap forward for the concept the Navy is developing, said Mike Leahy, who heads the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA.

The Navy “will only be able to go so far with where the technology has matured,” Leahy said.