Maritime drones can have both offensive and defensive uses, all while keeping sailors and surface ships at safer standoff ranges. Navy strategies see them operating in coordinated groups of drone boats networking vital war information between surface, air and even undersea regions across wide-spanning segments of ocean. Such missions are fast being increasingly enabled by advances in autonomy, fortified by computer algorithms performing a growing number of procedural functions historically done by humans. Of course, developers are quick to emphasize that, regardless of advances in autonomy, current doctrine requires that human decision-makers remain "in the loop" when it comes to making decisions about attacking with lethal force.
Naturally, enabling these kinds of technical advances are part of a massive strategic shift for the Navy as it pivots its attack concepts to incorporate an expanded fleet of surface and undersea drones. The initiative, as described by Capt. Pete Small, program executive officer, Unmanned Systems, includes new levels of autonomy, advanced command and control, emerging software and various weapons configurations. Speaking in January at the 32nd annual Surface Navy Association Symposium, Small said many of these efforts to advance autonomy at sea are part of an emerging Navy program called Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture.