Next-Generation Undersea Warfare and Undersea Distributed Networked Systems
Abstract
Since the early 1990s, the undersea warfare (USW) community has experienced dramatic changes in its operational, technical, and business climates. The changes are expected to continue and perhaps accelerate-leading to significant new demands for USW capabilities. Because many of the currently proposed new capabilities are just an expansion of Cold War ways, it is valuable to lay the groundwork for what is being termed "Next-Generation Undersea Warfare." The USW paradigms of the past, which included single-platform missions, long time scales, and Cold War era ocean dimensions, are being substantially replaced by complex joint force and distributed, networked littoral operations with significantly decreased tactical operating areas and times. Central to Next-Generation USW is knowing that operating in the undersea domain is difficult to master and comes with a relatively high entrance cost in the form of doctrine, organization, training, materiel/technology, leadership, personnel, and support facilities. Operating in the undersea domain, however, has significant inherent advantage for staging and conducting joint force littoral operations. This report presents the rationale, inherent advantages, and implications of Next-Generation USW. Additionally, undersea distributed networked systems (UDNS)-consisting of sensors, unmanned vehicles, platforms, weapons, command/control and, most important, human systems networked to create effects that can be summoned for advantage by the clever warfighter-promise to be a key enabler for Next-Generation USW. This report defines and articulates the nature of UDNS for the technologist and the warfighter. The goal is to help system developers and engineers sort out new system functions and relationships that may be added to the future seabed-to-space theater-level combat system and generate a warfighting advantage.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 31, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA468885
Entities
People
- Raymond J. Christian
Organizations
- Naval Undersea Warfare Center