ANNAPOLIS, Md., 8 Jan. 2011. The Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC) Undersea Systems segment in Annapolis, Md., won a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., to develop the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV), joining QinetiQ North America Technology Solutions Group in Waltham, Mass., in the ACTUV project to develop a new class of ocean-going unmanned surface vessels (USVs).
Under the terms of the $2 million contract, Northrop Grumman will develop a concept, specifications, and a manufacturing plan by the end of March 2011 for a persistent, autonomous vessel that can perform ASW tracking and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance functions. DARPA awarded QinetiQ a $2 million ACTUV contract last October for the first phase of the program to develop an unmanned naval vessel optimized to provide continuous overt trail of threat submarines.
The ACTUV is intended to trail and monitor targets autonomously. A collection of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) and advanced, customized sensors would provide the ACTUV's command and control system with the situational awareness it needs to respond to target behaviors. High-fidelity surface-navigation sensors and system constraints would help ensure compliance with the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS) and with maritime law.
"Our ACTUV solution will include a feasible vehicle that will be capable of quickly transitioning into an operational system -- like the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, which flew in just 33 months," says Robert DuBeau, vice president of Northrop Grumman's Undersea Systems business unit.
Northrop Grumman's ACTUV team includes Harris Inc. of Melbourne, Fla.; Spatial Integrated Systems of Virginia Beach, Va.; Vehicle Control Technologies Inc. of Reston, Va.; and Pennsylvania State University, Advanced Research Laboratory of State College, Pa.
For more information contact Northrop Grumman online at www.es.northropgrumman.com, the QinetiQ Technology Solutions Group online at www.qinetiq-na.com/tsg, or DARPA at www.darpa.mil.
