HII grows unmanned investments

The Navy continues its pursuit of unmanned vehicles, Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) hopes to harness its experience of building the service’s largest platforms to expand into the unmanned arena. HII announced in July its investment in Sea Machines Robotics, a Boston firm, that focuses on software for the unmanned surface vehicle market. Andy Green, HII’s Technical Solutions president, said the investment allows HII to respond to Navy requests and learn more about new unmanned technologies. Surface or sub-surface unmanned vehicles act as a “multiplier of existing platforms” that will provide significant extension of those … capabilities, regardless of the specific mission. Green told USNI News. The former submariner billed these unmanned platforms as a way for the Navy to supplement legacy platforms like amphibious ships and combatants with new technology. He described Sea Machines as a “logical extension” of what HII delivers to the Navy. HII got into the unmanned market in 2015, when it purchased Columbia Group’s Engineering Solutions Division, which built the Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle known as Proteus. In early 2020, HII reached a $350M deal with Kongsberg to purchase Hydroid, which builds unmanned underwater vehicles. HII also joined Boeing in a collaborative bid for the Navy’s Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, for which Boeing received a $43M contract to build four vessels in February 2019. (Source: USNI News 08/04/20) Mississippi Note: HII-Pascagoula, Miss., is one of the largest shipbuilders, along with its sister facility in Virginia, the U.S. https://news.usni.org/2020/08/04/hii-growing-unmanned-investments-as-navy-plans-to-expand-capability