The Defense Innovation Unit has selected Greensea Systems and Nauticus Robotics to build prototypes of unmanned amphibious systems for the U.S. Marine Corps to detect, identify and neutralize naval mines and other explosive hazards in surf and on beach landing zones.
DIU said Wednesday the Autonomous Amphibious Response Vehicle project intends to come up with prototypes of unmanned platforms that could interoperate with other underwater drones, underwater surface vehicles and explosive ordance disposal professionals as part of the Littoral Explosive Ordnance Neutralization program.
Greensea will partner with Bayonet Ocean Vehicles to work on the Bayonet-250 crawler prototype.
Nauticus Robotics will team up with VideoRay to develop a concept vehicle, called Terranaut, that would use thrusters to navigate through the seafloor.
USMC will conduct a user assessment of the submitted prototypes by the fall of 2023 and integrate the platforms with mission command systems. The service expects the prototypes to adopt open architecture standards to facilitate interoperability.
The Department of Defense’s innovation arm received 67 proposals for the A2RV program’s rapid prototyping phase.
