Navy awards $982M unmanned surface vehicle contract

The Navy has awarded 40 seats on a potential 10-year, $982.1 million contract for work on future unmanned surface vehicles.

Awardees will compete for delivery orders over the contract’s duration of an initial five-year base period and a five-year option, the Defense Department said Wednesday.

Forty-two bids were submitted for the Unmanned Surface Vehicle Family of Systems contract that figures to be another component in the Navy’s push for more vessels without sailors.

In July, the Navy formally unveiled its plans to acquire a medium-sized USV that can navigate the seas and carry out missions without any human in control. An award for the first prototype is scheduled between October and December of this year.

Meanwhile, awardees for the USV Family of Systems contract include all forms of companies from the platform manufacturers to systems integrators and other services providers.

• AAI Corp., a subsidiary of Textron Systems
• Advanced Acoustic Concepts
• Aerostar Technical Solutions
• Arete Associates
• Austal USA
• Azimuth
• BAE Systems
• BMT Designers & Planners
• Boeing
• Continental Tide Defense Systems
• Draper Laboratory
• General Dynamics' mission systems segment
• Gibbs & Cox
• Gravois Aluminum Boats, which operates as Metal Shark
• Huntington Ingalls Industries' fleet support group 
• Hydroid (to be acquired by Huntington Ingalls)
• ICI Services
• L3Harris Technologies' Unidyne subsidiary
• Leidos
• Lockheed Martin
• Maritime Applied Physics
• Micro Systems
• Northrop Grumman
• Oasis Systems 
• Oceaneering International 
• Peraton
• QED Systems
• Raytheon
• Reliable Systems Services
• Rolls-Royce Marine North America
• Science Applications International Corp.
• System Engineering Associates 
• Sedna Digital Solutions 
• Serco Inc.
• Spatial Integrated Systems
• Teledyne Brown Engineering
• The Columbia Group
• Tridentis
• Ultra Electronics Ocean Systems 
• WR Systems

USVs have been deployed for minesweeping missions in the past. The Navy eyes their increased use for collecting information, electronic warfare, defending against adversaries’ vessels, testing and training, search and rescue, and augmenting other manned and unmanned vessels.