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in the nation’s coastal and expanded roles of unmanned systems in (like hydrophones) primarily in their world’s ocean waters.” Why is environmental intelligence operations ? sheries and climate groups. They are this agreement signi? cant, and means their place in the war? ghting tool monitoring marine mammals, detect- perhaps more importantly, why kit is well entrenched. As endurance and ing seismic activity, and using it for law wasn’t this type of agreement complex autonomy improves, you can enforcement for public consumption. already in place? expect the mission set to grow. Naval Oceanography collects acoustic

For decades, NOAA and Navy have a information to understand how ambient long history of cooperation and previ- noise impacts sound pathways through

The impetus for this interview ously developed a framework to broaden the ocean to enable undersea warfare. was the recent agreement coordination to leverage expertise in the CENOTE better postures Navy and between NOAA and the U.S. development and operational transition NOAA to reduce costs and minimize

Navy “to jointly expand the of Unmanned Maritime Systems (UMS) duplication of effort in development and development and operations of under the Commercial Engagement operations of unmanned systems. unmanned maritime systems

Through Ocean Technology Act (CE-

NOTE). The signi? cance of CENOTE is

How does USN use unmanned to further operational use of unmanned maritime systems today, and systems, as well strengthening the part- perhaps more importantly, nership through joint acquisition strate- how do you see the use of UMS gies, and autonomy development. expanding in the near- and long-

While NOAA and Naval Oceanogra- term (ie. what types of things phy use unmanned systems similarly would you like them to do that to collect similar data sets, we do it for they’re not already doing?) very different reasons with very dif- Utilization of unmanned systems will ferent mission sets. A great example is continue to expand throughout Navy acoustics. NOAA uses acoustic sensors operations. Early successes with the www.marinetechnologynews.com 29

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