USNI News
Ghost Fleet Ship ‘Nomad’ Transited Panama Canal, Headed to California
May 20, 2021 12:03 PM
Ghost Fleet vessel Nomad transits the Miraflores locks in the PAnama Canal on May 18, 2021. USNI News Graphic
An experimental unmanned surface vehicle has transited the Panama Canal on the way to its new home in California, USNI News has learned.
Nomad, a former offshore patrol vessel retrofitted with systems to allow the ship to operate autonomously, passed through the Panama Canal this week, according to ship spotters tracking data from
Marine Traffic.com. A Navy official also confirmed the transit.
Web cameras at the canal’s Miraflores locks showed
With the submarine threat on the rise, the US Navy looks to autonomous water sensor drones February 17 The Navy is looking to update its fleet of autonomous sensor gliders used to measure water data needed for hunting enemy submarines. (Photo: Navy) WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy is collecting proposals for a new autonomous glider drone that can collect data such as water temperatures over time as a way to improve how it hunts for enemy submarines. The system will be the next generation of the current Littoral Battlespace Sensing Glider, which generally deploys from one of the Navy’s five oceanographic survey ships. That glider became the center of an international incident in 2016 when China seized the drone, calling it a hazard to navigation.
Ghost Fleet Overlord USV participates in ‘Dawn Blitz exercise
19 January 2021
by Richard Scott
An experimental Ghost Fleet Overlord unmanned surface vehicle (USV) has participated in a major amphibious exercise on the US Pacific coast, having previously transited over 4,700 n miles almost entirely autonomously.
Developed under a partnership between the US Department of Defense (DoD) and the US Navy (USN) through the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), the Overlord initiative is a joint programme designed to accelerate navy efforts to develop USVs and demonstrate increasingly capable autonomous behaviours. Outputs from the programme are informing the USN’s Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle (LUSV) acquisition effort.
Unclear on unmanned: The US Navy’s plans for robot ships are on the rocks David Larter
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One of the two prototypes purchased by the Office of the Secretary of Defense s Strategic Capabilities Office for its Ghost Fleet Overlord program, aimed at fielding an autonomous surface ship capable of launching missiles. (U.S. Defense Department)
This is the first of a three-part series on the Navy’s struggles to develop unmanned ships and systems. WASHINGTON – After a bruising, year-long fight with Congress, part of the Navy’s plan to field unmanned ships appears to be on life support, making 2021 a crucial year for plotting a path forward.