Source: United States Navy
More than 45 participants from four NavalX Gulf Coast Tech Bridge partner commands—Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD), the Naval Research Lab (NRL) Stennis, the Naval Meteorological and Oceanography Command (CNMOC), and Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVO)—collaborated to demonstrate the acceleration of technology development. This exercise successfully integrated multiple unmanned systems from contracting partners to collect and transmit real-time environmental data to a forward-deployed shore station. The experiment also tested novel data exfiltration methods, demonstrated regional partnering, and leveraged prior Navy and non-Navy development efforts to advance subsea warfare (SSW) mission capabilities.
“This experiment was important because it demonstrated a process for rapidly moving from focusing on the warfighter need, sourcing technologies and industry partners, understanding lessons learned from the fleet from using relevant systems, understanding how to accelerate capabilities, and then executing an experiment to demonstrate the sourced capabilities,” said Holly Gardner, NSWC PCD director of Strategic Engagement and NavalX Gulf Coast Tech Bridge director. “It highlights our command’s capabilities and expertise as leaders not only in unmanned systems, but also in systems engineering, integration and test and evaluation. It also highlights NSWC PCD’s role as the lead command in the NavalX Gulf Coast Tech Bridge.”
This exercise illustrated a process for rapidly moving from focusing on warfighters’ needs, to sourcing technologies, and executing successful experiments to demonstrate emerging capabilities. The initial integration testing was completed on schedule, followed by at-sea testing, real-time data collection and processing.
“As a project lead in developing systems, I really appreciate events that focus on integration and forward progress versus ‘demos’ that show the same capabilities over and over,” said Erica Davis, NSWC PCD Skylla Project lead. “This event allowed for development and integration of the systems with the people who support them at other commands. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we worked directly with the teams who are experts in their systems and we all gained a lot of knowledge in other systems and came away with creative ideas how we could integrate in the future.”
This effort was the culmination of nearly a year’s worth of planning that began with an initial workshop focused on developing a collaborative vision for the Gulf of Mexico ranges and selecting capabilities that address undersea warfare mission needs. The experiment included at-sea testing, the collection, fusing and display of data collected from those systems in real-time at a forward-deployed shore station, and transmission of the data to NAVO for further analysis. The experiment is a precursor to CNMOC’s Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) 2025 event series, which consists of technical vignettes occurring throughout FY24 & 25 and ends with a culminating event which will be held in conjunction with the Marine Technology Society’s (MTS) Gulf Coast Oceans-In-Action Workshop in April 2025.
It also included four Navy STEM students from programs like SSEP (STEM Student Employment Program), Pathways, and NREIP (Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program) who participated in a real-life, mission scenario experiment. They provided at-sea support and gained exposure to cutting-edge concept of operations, demonstrating the Navy’s commitment to fostering future STEM leaders.
“The demonstration team’s success is the result of planning, passion, commitment and a lot of hard work dedicated to delivering capabilities to the fleet,” said CNMOC Commander Rear Adm. Ron Piret. “Over the past year, our ANTX 2025 team, which is comprised of industry, academia and Navy partners, has focused on proving and integrating technologies through a series of test cases in preparation for the OCEANS In Action 2025 culminating event. The results have been inspiring, and by gauging the team’s enthusiasm – innovation can be great fun.”
The geographical location of NSWC PCD demonstrates the value of the Eastern Gulf Test and Training Range, the largest military test and training range in the continental United States, a national asset. The experiment took place in the Panama City Operations Area’s Surface and Subsurface Range and also highlights the multi-domain SSW operations, which play a critical role in its recent organizational re-alignment to support the U.S. Navy.