{"id":20676,"date":"2021-02-17T22:49:42","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T22:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/02\/17\/with-the-submarine-threat-on-the-rise-the-us-navy-looks-to-autonomous-water-sensor-drones\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:51:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:51:39","slug":"with-the-submarine-threat-on-the-rise-the-us-navy-looks-to-autonomous-water-sensor-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2021\/02\/17\/with-the-submarine-threat-on-the-rise-the-us-navy-looks-to-autonomous-water-sensor-drones\/","title":{"rendered":"With the submarine threat on the rise, the US Navy looks to autonomous water sensor drones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 The U.S. Navy is collecting proposals for a new autonomous glider drone that can collect data \u2014 such as water temperatures over time \u2014 as a way to improve how it hunts for enemy submarines<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The system will be the next generation of the current Littoral Battlespace Sensing Glider, which generally deploys from one of the Navy\u2019s five oceanographic survey ships. That glider became the center of an international incident in 2016 when China seized the drone<\/a>, calling it a hazard to navigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Navy would use the drones<\/a> for measuring water conditions in places where it might expect to need to hunt submarines in the future and help guide fleet operational planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drone would need to be able to operate for 90 days at a time, dive to depths of up to 200 meters \u2013 or 657 feet \u2013 and take a sample every 2 seconds, according to documents posted to Naval Information Warfare Systems Command\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Navy wants the drone to be able to loiter at depth or on the bottom, be able to transmit data when it surfaces via iridium satellite or a line-of-site datalink and be recoverable by either a survey ship or a vessel of opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drone should also be able to scuttle itself and erase the data if tampered with, a function that can be triggered by operators at a command center or if the machine is tampered with, the documents read.<\/p>\n\n\n\t