Navy Mission Shows Promise of Autonomous Boats for Pacific Ops

A recent Navy milestone demonstrated that unmanned boats show promise for long-duration operations in contested maritime environments, advancing the service’s push toward distributed warfare and autonomous fleet operations particularly in the Pacific region.

During a mission this month, a MARTAC T38 Devil Ray unmanned surface vessel (USV) operated autonomously for eight days 400 nautical miles off the California coast, navigating rough seas, commercial traffic and extended communications constraints without a dedicated escort vessel.

Navy officials said this marks a critical step toward proving unmanned systems can persist in open-ocean environments while supporting the distributed sensing, networking and targeting capabilities the service needs for future conflict.

“This event moved our autonomy assessment closer to the operating conditions that matter for future maritime test and evaluation: extended duration, open ocean, remote supervisory control, no dedicated support vessel or escort and performance across changing environmental conditions,” Spencer Holloway, director of the Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR) Point Mugu Sea Range Future Capabilities Office, told GovCIO Media & Research in an interview.

The unmanned vessel’s builder, MARTAC, noted the significance of the milestone occurring outside of a controlled exercise environment.

“This was a real-world operation,” Chief Growth Officer Seamus Flatley told GovCIO Media & Research.

“Autonomy cannot be fully understood through short, scripted demonstrations alone. We need to see how these systems behave over time, at distance from shore, with real-world contacts, communications constraints, sea-state variation and propulsion-management demands,” added Holloway.

Role of Unmanned in Pacific Theater

The mission reflects the Navy’s broader effort to prepare for future conflicts in the Pacific, where commanders expect forces to operate across vast distances with degraded communications and increased threats to manned ships. Unmanned surface vessels are viewed as a way to extend sensing, targeting and networking capabilities while reducing risk to sailors.

During the eight-day operation, the T38 navigated Sea State 4 and 5 conditions and faced 7-to-8-foot wave swells, according to Holloway. He said critical operations — including speed, heading and engine temperatures — remained stable throughout the mission. Platform resilience under high-stress conditions, he added, is essential to the Navy’s strategic goals.

“A USV that can maintain controlled motion, power stability and navigation performance in higher sea states is more useful as a range asset,” Holloway said. “Stable platform behavior supports better sensor performance, more reliable communications and more consistent data collection.”

The vessel’s autonomy stack also navigated around static and moving open-ocean traffic while maintaining compliance with the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREG). Holloway said predictable decision logic is critical for the Navy to trust autonomous assets in contested spaces.

“The primary behaviors we were focused on were safe contact management, predictable maneuvering, and the vessel’s ability to maintain an accurate operating picture around both static and moving contacts,” Holloway said.

The mission also featured an intentional 48-hour single-engine loiter phase conducted hundreds of miles from port, Flatley said. By shutting down one engine to conserve fuel while keeping both available for rapid repositioning, the T38 demonstrated that long-duration maritime operations depend on efficient energy management rather than raw speed, MARTAC Senior Vice President for Federal and Government Sales Karl Van Deusen said in a release.

Holloway emphasized that this persistence supports the Navy’s distributed operations requirements.

“The single-engine period was valuable because it tested a realistic endurance management profile within the context of a sustained eight-day open-ocean mission, not just a short-term transit or a nominal operating profile,” Holloway said.

Finding the Right Size for USVs

The Department of the Navy established the Portfolio Acquisition Executive Robotic Autonomous System (PAE RAS) to consolidate the development and procurement of autonomous systems. According to MARTAC, finding the right vehicle scale has been a challenge, with smaller USVs unable to sustain mission endurance requirements.

Flatley said the T38’s 38-foot catamaran hull is small enough to remain cost-effective and large enough to navigate heavy seas, generate sustained internal power and carry substantial payloads such as unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs), unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and precision munitions.

MARTAC CTO Jim Harvey told GovCIO Media & Research that the T38’s size directly satisfies the Navy’s strategic demand for both persistent presence and high-speed mobility.

“If you go too small you don’t get that persistence, and if you go completely off of organic power like the sun, then you become just a bunch of solar panels … We need to be able to be persistent on target, and we also need to be able to move quickly,” Harvey said. “[DON needs] to be able to sustain their presence in certain locations, and that’s the biggest thing that we can offer.”

Open Architecture as a Strategic Advantage

PAE RAS’ execution of DON’s USV strategy mandates a shift away from closed, proprietary vendor ecosystems to more open-architecture autonomy frameworks and software. Harvey noted how this modular software and hardware philosophy is natively baked into the T38 platform to keep pace with shifting operational requirements.

“Our mast could be moved anywhere on the craft. In addition to that, we can put payloads pretty much anywhere on the craft, depending upon what mission is needed,” Harvey said. “It hits the sweet spot between what allows you to identify unique missions and extend those missions, but then also add modularity between the software and the hardware.”

According to Holloway, DON’s modular software and hardware requirements bring better solutions and more innovation into the USV fleet.

“Open architecture is important because it gives NAWCWD a faster path to experiment without redesigning the entire platform each time,” Holloway said. “That flexibility supports the way modern [test and evaluation] has to work. We need to be able to integrate a payload, collect data, learn from the event, modify the configuration and test again without a multi-year development cycle for every change.”

Capabilities like the T38 and other modular USV systems align with the Pentagon’s push for faster acquisition.

“An open-architecture approach helps reduce vendor lock-in, supports modular payload integration and creates a practical testbed for emerging autonomy and AI-enabled decision-support tools,” Holloway said.

Flatley said that the eight‑day, fully autonomous mission is one step in advancing DON’s USV strategy.

“What the Navy recently accomplished with the boat out in the Pacific, the feedback has been very positive. There’s more testing DON wants to support in the future,” he said.