Youtube description "Published on Mar 10, 2016. Echo Voyager, Boeing’s latest unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV), can operate autonomously for months at a time thanks to a hybrid rechargeable power system and modular payload bay. The 51-foot-long [15.5 m] vehicle is the latest innovation in Boeing’s UUV family, joining the 32-foot Echo Seeker and the 18-foot Echo Ranger."
Improvements in the electrics, electronics and communications to UAVs will accelerate the development of UUVs like Echo Voyager. How autonomous Echo Voyager is will depend on the mission - particularly if it is used as a weapon (weapon uses would require closer human supervision). ---
Echo Voyager may be the largest of a rapidly expanding group of Large Diameter (or Displacement) Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (LDUUVs).
Much more sensor and propulsion capability for its small size can be packed into the Voyager because there is no need for manned life support equipment (no oxygen, water, food, or air conditioning) and far fewer safety measures.
"Missions", 0:55 seconds into the Youtube, are displayed very briefly - so here they all are for slower reading:
- Surface Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissand / Information Warfare [perhaps used for downloading deeply embedded SeaWeb node data and then relaying data to satellite. See antenna at youtube 1:10]
- Payload Deployment [SeaWeb sensors, undersea cable tapping equipment, environmental sensors. Though long the 51 foot Voyager can probably fit into 100 foot special missions hull extension on nuclear submarine USS Jimmy Carter.]
- Critical Infrastructure Protection [of naval bases, ports, coastal nuclear reactors, oil terminals]
- Weapons Platform [small torpedos, mines and a whole Voyager might be rigged to explode]
- Unmanned Aerial Vehicle [UAV] Operations [launching UAV]
- Subsea Search and Reconnaissance [If the smaller Echo Seeker can dive 20,000 feet under then Echo Voyager is highly likely to be able to as well. For subsea uses USS Jimmy Carter special missions also comes into the picture.]
- Anti-submarine Warfare Search and Barrier [Can tail slow submarines]
- Submarine Decoy [acting like a slow moving or stationary submarine]
- Mine Countermeasures [detecting and perhaps destroying mines]
- Battlespace Preparation [perhaps working with submarines or for an assault on a beach]
Its endurance of around three months will depend on its energy source and energy expended particularly its speed (including steady cruising or acceleration, deceleration and turns).
The increasing size and capabilities of LDUUVs are coming at a time when the capabilities of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) sensors and weapons are also increasing.
SeaWeb ASW sensors summarised as "eyes in the sky" and "ears in the sea" are becoming more sensitive perhaps making ever larger submarines all the more detectable.
These are all putting traditional manned submarine operations at greater risk particularly slower moving conventional diesel-electric submarines (SSKs).
An SSK moving at its most efficient LIB or AIP speed of 4 knots may not realise that a very large LDUUV like the Echo Voyager has tailed it (in its "baffles") for two weeks. A 51 foot Echo Voyager is much smaller in length (hence stealthier) than a submarine. Even a WW2 Japanese 2 man submarine was 78 feet long.
An Echo Voyager may look large by UUV standards but it may be very difficult to detect if it is dull gray/black, remains at about 600 meters or deeper, has an anechoic coating and is powered by a three month lithium-ion battery (LIB) and/or a fuel cell AIP.
Sideview of an Echo Voyager (Photo courtesy Boeing)
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Other major points about Echo Voyager are:
- A military Echo Voyager could extend its range and mission capabilitities if it is considered disposable - on a one way mission. At the end of a mission non-explosive self-destruct equipment could be used to erase its hard disks and destroy other classified equipment.
- A 2015 gizmag article reported on Boeing patents for a UAV that turned into a UUV.
- Voyager could use its antenna to regularly receive encrypted data to give it further instructions.
- It could use small periscopes.
- Sea trials of the Echo Voyager are planned to take place off the coast of California in June-August 2016.
Pete