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November 2011www.marinelink.com 35?The T-Craft INP demonstrator won?t be built, but the technologies we?ve ad- vanced in studying that concept will be available for naval architects and marine engineers for years to come,? Schuette says.LARGE DISPLACEMENT UUV The Navy is investing heavily in un- manned systems in the air, on the surface and on the ground, as well as under thesea.The Large displacement unmanned un- derwater vehicle (LDUUV) INP will be 4-feet in diameter and 20-30 feet long,with a 70-day mission profile. The LDUUV leverages the considerable ex- perience with smaller UUVs, and bringthose lessons learned into a larger, more capable platform,? Schuette says. ?This INP will be a complete game changer for the community.? ?There are lots of missions for a UUVwith that payload, volume and duration,? Schuette says. Schuette says the LDUUV is like a truck with a flexible payload section. ?We provide the guidance, platform, power and energy and autonomy. Others can bring the payload.? ONR is working with universities as well as the Naval Research Laboratory, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center at Newport, RI, and the Naval Surface War- fare Center at Carderock, Md., to find new types of propulsion and fuel sources. ?We?re not looking at electro-chemi- cal energy storage. We?ve been look- ing at the hydrogen fuel cell in that General Motors has developed,, and we?re are working to install it in a UUV. Ideally, we want to stay away from batteries, and find something completely new,? Schuette said. ?We?re trying to create the alternate future. The time is right.? ?We?ve leveraged research that goes back to the days of the Strategic Defense Initiative in electromagnetic rail guns and directed energy weapons. We?re working with Navy labs and contractors to build prototypes and show Navy what the art of the possible is,? says Schuette. ?NRL just fired their 1,000th rail gun shot, and we?ve reached 33 mega joules with our rail gun at Dahlgren, a world record.? ?I?m excited about rail guns and free electron lasers,? Schuette says. ?We said what we were going to do, and we?re doing it. We?ve taken this from science fiction to science fact.? MAINTENANCE FREE SHIP Schuette says ONR?s investments in in- novation will an impact on both naval forces and the maritime industry?on andunder the sea. ?We?re learning what we need to do to keep ships out of dry dock, and get that full ship life with less laborthan we?re expending now,? says Schuette. ?We?re tying together a lot of discovery and invention work and invest- ing in Future Naval Capabilities (FNCs) to show the Navy what this would look like on a ship.? ?We?ve always been challenged to get full rated life out of platforms, so how can we create a ship that needs less at-tention, less often, and still performs atits best? How can we keep a ship out of dry dock and in service? So we?re look- ing at the ?maintenance free ship.? I see the tools we use for maintenance on ships today as the same as or similar tothe tools we used in 40s and 50s. For example, we still use chipping ham-mers and needle guns for removing paint, and mitigating corrosion and rust. We?re looking at new coatings and high-solids paints that don?t rust for voids OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH FEATURE MR Nov.11 # 5 (34-41):MR Template 10/27/2011 10:00 AM Page 35