Transcript for: As Navy Moves Toward Uncrewed Maritime Vehicles, A
Clearer Plan Is Need for Achieving Its Goals

Description:  The U.S. Navy faces more competition as other nations
invest in new weapons and technologies designed to disrupt U.S. naval
advantages. To help counter this competition and potential disruptions,
the Navy is developing surface and underwater vehicles that don't
require crews to operate. But we identified some gaps in its plans. We
find out more from GAO’s Shelby Oakley.

Related GAO Work: GAO-22-104567, Uncrewed Maritime Systems: Navy Should
Improve Its Approach to Maximize Early Investments 

Released: April 2022

[Shelby Oakley:] Uncrewed systems have immense potential, but the Navy
isn't focused on the most important part of this effort yet--the digital
infrastructure.

[Music]

[Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO’s Watchdog Report--your source for
news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm
your host Holly Hobbs. The U.S. Navy faces more competition as other
nations invest in new weapons and technologies designed to disrupt U.S.
naval advantages. To help counter this competition and potential
disruptions, the Navy is developing surface and underwater vehicles that
don't require crews to operate. But we identified some gaps in its
plans. Today, we'll find out more about this effort and its challenges
from Director Shelby Oakley, an expert in Navy shipbuilding and defense
acquisitions. Thanks for joining us. 

[Shelby Oakley:] I appreciate you having me.

[Holly Hobbs:] So, Shelby, when we talk about uncrewed vehicles, it
sounds like we're talking about drones. Are these just drones for water? 

[Shelby Oakley:] Well, robots for water is probably a more accurate
simplification. It's a lot more complex to operate these systems
underwater as opposed to in the air like drones. Take something like
bandwidth. The available bandwidth under the ocean is much less than
what is typically available for air drones. And this is a huge
challenge. These robots, quote-unquote, will be required to operate
autonomously. And DOD needs artificial intelligence versus simple remote
control like is used on drones. And so, as a result, the Navy is
building these systems with an eye toward rapidly maturing those AI
capabilities. Another big difference between drones and these undersea
vehicles is that in typical air missions, they last hours. But with Navy
systems, they're expected to operate for several weeks. This really will
require the Navy to automate even routine tasks that are normally done
by sailors, such as changing oil. So it's a big challenge all around. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Why does the Navy want these systems?

[Shelby Oakley:] In general, they have the potential to provide
significant capability enhancements to the ships with no risk to human
life. The Navy wants these systems to do missions that would normally be
risky for our sailors. They're also looking toward these systems to
provide added firepower, like being able to launch missiles and whatnot
without putting sailors at risk in a traditional battlespace.

[Holly Hobbs:] And this sounds expensive. How expensive is it?

[Shelby Oakley:] Well, the true cost really is not known yet, but the
Navy has initially budgeted about $4 billion over the next five years.
But that eventual total cost, it could be really, really big in the tens
of billions of dollars. You know, for instance, much like the electric
car revolution, these uncrewed systems are more about like the data and
the AI that enables them than the actual, you know, physical car or ship
itself. And the Navy really hasn't taken steps to understand what those
costs will be to develop the data and AI capabilities. We think they're
going to likely be very significant. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So we're talking about developing technology. How soon
could we see this technology being used or is it already being used now? 

[Shelby Oakley:] Yeah, the Navy has already successfully used artificial
intelligence to transit ships thousands of miles with a small crew on
board just in case something went wrong. But in general, really, the
full potential of these systems remains about ten plus years away. One
of the more interesting findings in our report is that the Navy has yet
to even begin collecting the data and developing what we term the
digital infrastructure. That's like the software and the networks and
the systems it needs to develop assets that are based and operated on
artificial intelligence.

[Holly Hobbs:] So given the goals and the expense of this program, does
the Navy have a plan for developing and fielding this technology? 

[Shelby Oakley:] The Navy is in the midst of working through what the
potential implications of these types of technologies are on their
future fleet. And they've really prioritized prototyping, prototyping of
these uncrewed assets and getting these prototypes into the hands of the
sailors, the operators. This is really positive. Prototyping is
positive. However, as I mentioned, you know, the Navy's plans for the
digital infrastructure continue to lag significantly behind these actual
ships, even though this is going to be the most important piece to
enable the effort. We found that the Navy really doesn't have a clear
plan for how to acquire the capabilities needed to better develop that
software and AI.

{MUSIC}

[Holly Hobbs:] So Shelby just told us that uncrewed vehicles have the
potential to transform the Navy’s capabilities, including by reducing
the risks to sailors. But that despite its significant potential and its
costs, the Navy doesn’t have a clear plan for acquiring the capabilities
needed to develop this technology. So Shelby, given the gaps we
identified in the Navy's planning, including for costs, what more do we
think they should be doing? 

[Shelby Oakley:] We think the Navy needs to take several actions to
improve its uncrewed efforts. First, it needs to gain a better
understanding of the resources that the effort is going to need to get
off the ground and achieve its goals. Second, the Navy has a lot of
efforts going on, and it has divided management of these efforts between
surface, undersea and integration offices. We think the Navy really
needs to take more steps to provide clear leadership that can set and
fund clear and measurable goals for these systems and these
capabilities. Finally, we think that the Navy needs to improve its
planning for prototyping these systems. And this includes building a
schedule that really shows how it's going to use these prototyping
efforts to mature the necessary technologies and eventually get
capabilities to the sailors.

[Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report? 

[Shelby Oakley:] The bottom line is uncrewed systems have immense
potential, but the Navy isn't focused on the most important part of this
effort yet--the digital infrastructure. And much needs to be done in this
regard for these systems to succeed and have the impact that the Navy
intends. While the Navy is focused on prototyping, which I mentioned is
great, it needs to take more action to actually leverage the learning
from that prototyping to make better long-term investment decisions in
these uncrewed systems and capabilities.

[Holly Hobbs:] That was Shelby Oakley talking about our new report on
uncrewed maritime systems. Thanks for your time, Shelby. 

[Shelby Oakley:] Thank you. 

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To
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