Missions for Unmanned Undersea Vehicles

A Survey of Missions for Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (Robert W. Button, John Kamp, Thomas B. Curtin, James Dryde, RAND, 2009) provides a surprisingly detailed and open account of the types of robot submarines the US military do, and might, use. The book suffers from some excess of military acronyms, but is readable by the enthusiast, as well as the specialist. The section on gliders, which can travel thousands of kilometers and remain underwater for months, running on a small battery, should be of particualr interest. A 200 Kbyte Summary and the full 3 Mbyte Full document are available for download for free (I read the paperback edition which can be purchased from RAND).

Contents

1. Introduction
2. UUV Missions
3. UUV Subsystems and Technologies
4. Evaluation of UUV Missions
5. Summary and Recommendations

• Appendix A: UUV Market Survey
• Appendix B: Models Used in This Analysis and Their Implications

The research described in this report was sponsored by the U.S. Navy and conducted within the Acquisition and Technology Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. ...

From: A Survey of Missions for Unmanned Undersea Vehicles. Robert W. Button, John Kamp, Thomas B. Curtin, James Dryde, RAND, 2009