Navy to enhance reliability of remote-control unmanned underwater vehicle for coastal defense and ISR

WASHINGTON, 20 Dec. 2011.Unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) designers at the Lockheed Martin Corp. Mission Systems & Sensors (MS2) segment in Riviera Beach, Fla., to enhance the reliability of the Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMMV) -- a multi-mission unmanned system to perform coastal defense, or intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR). Lockheed Martin is doing the work under terms of a $52.7 million contract from U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington.Lockheed Martin's contract involves the Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle Reliability Growth Program (RMMV RGP) to improve the mean time between operational mission failures of the RMMV.The RMMV UUV is based on the AN/WLD-1 Remote Minehunting System (RMS), a 23-foot-long semiautonomous, semisubmersible diesel-powered submarine with a snorkel and antenna mast, which is deploying on U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers to detect difficult-to-find moored and bottom sea mines, and will be a primary mine warfare mission package component aboard the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The RMV, which tows an advanced variable depth sensor designed to identify sea mine threats, has demonstrated its ability to operate without a host combatant ship.

The RMMV will support naval forces that do not have the kinds of surface ships for which the RMS was designed. It will use a portable launch and recovery system from either a pier or a ship of opportunity. The system has been launched in less than 10 minutes with a pier side overhead crane.

In fact, Lockheed Martin now uses a small overhead crane for launch and retrieval at our pier during daily operations. Launch or retrieval takes less than ten minutes and few support personnel.

Lockheed Martin engineers also have developed a portable command, control and communications (C3) system for the RMMV that is contained in a standard CONEX container. This C3 system can be loaded onto the deck of a ship of opportunity, or parked on the beach during operations to enable a RMMV to operate from a port, harbor, or coastal area without a host ship.

The contract calls for Lockheed Martin to develop a two-year comprehensive development and test program for the RMMV RGP to verify the system complies with RMMV system requirements and is prepared for installation on, and operations from, the Littoral Combat Ship.

The test program will include systems and design reviews using predictive reliability tools; spiral development with in-water testing to assess progress and potential areas of reliability enhancements; installation of RMMV reliability upgrades; and ancillary support.

Lockheed Martin engineers will in Palm Beach, Fla.; Syracuse, N.Y.; and Manassas, Va., Navy officials say, and should be finished by December 2013.

For more information contact Lockheed Martin MS2 online at www.lockheedmartin.com/ms2, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.