Unmanned Surface Vehicle Autonomous Maritime Seaway Navigation

The U.S. Navy is developing unmanned vehicle technologies for air, sea and undersea applications. Many technologies will have to be developed to replace functions that are now performed by human operators. Additional sensors will be required to provide the vehicle controller with information that a human would have sensed, and algorithms will have to be developed to react to the sensed information. One of the primary limitations of a manned vessel that will not exist on an unmanned vessel is motion sickness incidence of the crew. The discussion changes from needing to ensure that the crew can perform their duties and remain healthy in heavy seas, to ensuring that the unmanned vessel can maintain structural integrity, hydrodynamic stability, and directional control in a seaway. Beyond simply slowing the vehicle to reduce accelerations in heavy seas, the unmanned vessel will have to determine how to manage the trade off between efficiency and speed to achieve its destination.