52 unmanned systems
inside
April/May 2016
AIR, SEA OPPORTUNITY
L
aunched less than a year ago with a
tiny staff and huge ambitions, a new
unmanned technology enterprise is
poised to take off if its backers can nail down
its funding.
Those backers, however, are not venture
capitalists and it's located in Washington, DC,
not California.
The new Office of the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Navy for Unmanned Systems
(DASN UxS) is one of a pair of high-powered
shops created by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus
to begin welding the service's mash-up of inde-
pendent unmanned programs into a strategic
capability worth much more than the sum of
its parts.
New Start
Retired Brig. Gen. Frank Kelley, the first DASN
for unmanned technology, is charged with noth-
ing less than developing an overarching plan for
integrating these systems across a service that
operates in the air, on the land and underneath
the oceans as well as on their surface. That plan
is to be finished by Nov. 13, Kelley told IDGA's
Unmanned Maritime Systems conference in
December. Leading up to that will be a broad
effort to identify unmet needs and underused
innovations.
The first big step in crafting the strategy was
developing a vision and goals for unmanned
systems across the service, said Kelley's Chief
by Dee Ann Divis
The Navy has two new off ces to help it
integrate unmanned systems and soon both
will be looking to industry for new technology.
NAVY UNMANNED
An MQ–8B FIRE SCOTT
unmanned aircraft takes off
from the fl ight deck of the
littoral combat ship USS Fort
Worth during deck landing
qualifi cations.
"PICTURE WHAT
THAT LOOKS LIKE IN
THE FUTURE, ...a fl eet
where there is this global
network of unmanned
systems that's operating
365 days a year, 24/7."
Brig. Gen. Frank Kelley, deputy
assistant secretary of the Navy for
unmanned systems