Page 10: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2025)

SUBSEA DEFENSE CRAWLERS subject to the usual challenges and limitations of operating in which is well beyond the maximum effective depth of bot- the undersea environment – communication, navigation, and tom mines or moored contact mines. Deep water MCM could endurance. As such, they have been largely limited to seabed be on the vehicle’s list of mission sets (moored rising and operations in the coastal shallows and surf zone. But the Navy anti-submarine encapsulated torpedo mines can be deployed is now seeking a deep-water vehicle that can both crawl and at such depths), but it is likely that the Navy may have an al- swim. According to the SBIR solicitation, it must be capable together different mission set in mind: offensive seabed war- of transiting on the surface to a preprogrammed waypoint for fare. Although conceivably the vehicle could be used to mon- at least two nautical miles. itor and defend critical underwater infrastructure, it is more

It should then be capable of autonomously submerging to likely that the vehicle would be deployed at standoff range, the seabed and deploying a tethered buoy to be used by opera- sink to the seabed, deploy its buoy, and, via an RF communi- tors for semi-autonomous control. cation link to human operators, employ manipulator arms to

This would enable standoff mine countermeasures in ad- place explosives, tap or sever cables, or deploy surveillance vance of an amphibious landing, possibly covert mine neu- sensors. The vehicle’s compact size would enable it to be de- tralization or render-safe operations which could provide ployed via the stern ramp of a small special operations boat, invading forces with operational surprise and enable them such as the Naval Special Warfare Combatant Craft Medium to seize the initiative. Other missions could be possible too, (CCM), or even a small unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that such as prepositioning weapons, supplies, or even swarms of has been modi? ed to accommodate roll-on roll-off payloads. weaponized crawlers to provide suppressive ? re in support of Alternatively, crawlers could be deployed at standoff range amphibious forces. from the well deck of an amphibious ship, such as the San

But while the solicitation suggests that expeditionary mine Antonio-class LPD, or from the moon pool of a Path? nder- countermeasures (MCM) would be the primary mission for class (T-AGS) survey ship. Depending on its size and weight, a Navy crawler, it is interesting that the vehicle must be ca- it potentially could be man portable and deployed over the pable of conducting operations at depths of over 600 meters, side of small craft as well.

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