Proteus Platform Hosts Combination of Autonomous Systems
The Technical Solutions division of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) has announced the successful completion of sea trials of a combination of integrated autonomy solutions on board its Proteus unmanned vessel.
The testbed unmanned platform, which was unveiled in May last year, is equipped with Sea Machines’ SM300 autopilot system, which allows it to be controlled remotely. For the latest demonstration, which took place late last year, this basic system was augmented with HII’s “collaborative autonomy and mission-planning behaviors,” according to a company statement.
“This represents an important milestone in our continued autonomy development,” said Duane Fotheringham, President of HII Technical Solutions’ unmanned systems business group. “The integration was seamless and illustrates the immense potential for our open architecture autonomy to work collaboratively with other autonomous systems.”
“Sea Machines’ products are developed to integrate readily with the wide range of vessel types,” said Sea Machines CEO, Michael G Johnson. “Our goal is to fit seamlessly into a vessel’s command and control stack which in some cases will include information and control systems from other autonomy systems either above or below our technology. We are encouraged by the rapid progress demonstrated by the HII team as they integrate their technology with our product to elevate the capability of their customers.”
During the demonstration, HII’s autonomy systems “managed mission delegation and enabled collaborative autonomy with other unmanned systems […] while providing the SM300 system information to manage … heading and speed,” the company stated.
