According to the "War Zone" column of the US "Power Website", on December 20, 2023, following the completion of acceptance testing in early December, Boeing delivered the first "Orca" extra-large unmanned underwater vehicle (XLUUV) to the US Navy. Boeing has previously cooperated with the Navy to conduct several stages of sea testing on the "Orca", including surface and underwater maneuvers, showing good performance. However, the delivery of this unmanned underwater vehicle was delayed by 3 years due to the differences between the "Orca" and its prototype boat and the outbreak of the new crown, and the entire cost was seriously overspent. Boeing will also deliver four more "Orca" to the Navy, and the last one is expected to be delivered in June 2024. The delivery of the "Orca" marks that the US Navy has made great progress in the field of ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicles, further maintaining and consolidating its world-leading position in the field of unmanned combat submarines.
Birth Background
The "Killer Whale" ultra-large unmanned submarine originated from an early private technology company called EchoVoyager. It is the evolution of the previous autonomous unmanned submarine UUV conceptual submarine Echo Seeker and Echo Ranger. The company began designing and developing the Echo Voyager unmanned submarine in 2012, and was later acquired by the US military giant Boeing, which was optimistic about the company’s technology and intended to make a big splash in the field of intelligent unmanned submarines. In 2015, the U.S. Navy announced the Ultra-Large Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (XLUUVs) project in its unmanned system roadmap. It plans to eventually realize the ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicle (diameter greater than 7 feet, XLUUVs) through three phases of development projects, equipped with cruise missiles, torpedoes, mines and small UUVs, with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), mine warfare (MIW), mine countermeasures (MCM), anti-submarine (ASW), anti-ship (ASUW) and electronic warfare (EW) and other combat capabilities, so as to obtain the advantages of new underwater equipment technology and combat capabilities leading Russia, Japan and China’s underwater military powers.
In the first phase of the XLUUV project, ONR, Boeing and other institutions have carried out the development of the principle prototype of the XLU UV platform. Among them, Boeing launched the "Echo Voyager" military and civilian dual-use XLUUV concept plan in April 2016. In June 2017, Boeing disclosed that the Echo Navigator XLUUV was conducting sea trials off the coast of Southern California, mainly testing the main system and platform performance indicators such as communication systems, autonomous control systems, propulsion systems, system integration performance, and deep-water long-term diving performance.
In January 2017, the U.S. Navy announced the establishment of the Orca XLUUV project in January - launching the second phase of the XLUUVs development project - planning to develop a 38-meter (125-foot) long military XLUUV, and focusing on solving technical and tactical problems such as operational concepts (CONOPS), mine warfare (MIW) and mission payload integration. It is planned to successfully test underwater weapon launches in 2022. In October 2017, the U.S. Navy awarded the XLUUV development contract to Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and then awarded Boeing and its shipbuilding partner Huntington Ingalls Industries $43 million in February 2019 to purchase four Orcas. Subsequently, the fifth Orca was ordered in March of that year. Boeing then transformed the Echo Voyager unmanned underwater vehicle into a test version of the Orca for various navigation tests.
In 2018, the U.S. Navy added $30.18 million in funding to support the development of several key systems of the Orca XLUUV, focusing on launch, communication, command and control (C2), navigation, endurance, recovery, payload feasibility, and mission planning and execution.
At the end of 2018, Boeing submitted a plan for the Orca that looked like an extended version of the Echo Voyager, and Lockheed Martin submitted a plan for the Orca that looked more like an oversized torpedo.
On February 13, 2019, the U.S. Navy announced that Boeing (jointly with Huntington Ingalls Industries Huntington Ingall’s "Orca" XLUUV plan won the competition and will be awarded a contract to manufacture four "Orca" XLUUV prototypes. Since then, the U.S. Navy has added $274 million in funding to manufacture five "Orca" XLUUV prototypes and related technology development, and has also awarded Lockheed Martin a contract of nearly $10 million to develop the navigation control system equipment for the "Orca" XLUUV.
December 9, 2020 On the 28th, the U.S. Department of Defense officially released a new version of the 30-year shipbuilding plan, proposing to purchase two "Orca" XLUUV manned submarines in 2024 and 2025 respectively, and the purchase and commissioning will be accelerated after 2026.
Performance Overview
Since the "Orca" ultra-large unmanned submarine is developed based on the "Echo Voyager" unmanned submarine prototype, let’s first take a look at the performance overview of the "Echo Voyager".
"Echo Voyager The "Haijia" XLUUV is about 51 feet long, weighs about 50 tons, and can dive to a depth of more than 3,000 meters. It uses commercial system architecture and interfaces and has a redundant backup design, and has a high autonomous navigation capability. It uses a diesel engine-battery hybrid charging power system, and uses a snorkel-diesel engine to generate electricity when it floats to the surface. A single full charge can cruise underwater at 2.5 knots for more than 50 hours, and the fuel it carries can be used for continuous operation in the deep sea for more than 6 months, with a range of up to 12,000 kilometers; it can be used in civilian fields such as large-scale seabed monitoring, radiation detection, water sampling, oil and gas exploration, and sonar detection, and can also be used to perform military tasks such as surface intelligence surveillance, weapon delivery, or anti-mine. The "Echo Navigator" has been operating at sea for more than 10,000 hours and has autonomously sailed hundreds of nautical miles.
The "Killer Whale" ultra-large unmanned submarine has similar performance to the "Echo Navigator" unmanned submarine. The basic model of the boat is 15 meters long, 2.6 meters wide and high, with an empty weight of 45.36 tons and a maximum weight of 80 tons. Because it is too large, it needs to be hoisted from a large surface ship or driven directly to the sea through the dock. The boat has a range of up to 6,500 nautical miles, a maximum diving depth of 3,000 meters, can operate independently at sea for half a year, and has a pure electric mode range of 150 nautical miles. The boat is equipped with a hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system. It includes a marine diesel generator, a high-capacity lithium-ion battery and a motor-driven propeller, and a duct is installed on the outside, which greatly enhances its silent ability and long-term low-speed cruising ability. When the onboard lithium-ion battery is almost exhausted, the boat will surface with the mast raised and start the diesel generator for charging.
The maximum speed of the "Killer Whale" unmanned submarine is 14.8 kilometers per hour, the minimum speed is 4.63 kilometers per hour, and the cruising speed is 4.6-5.6 kilometers per hour. The active buoyancy control system on board will provide autonomous buoyancy control, subsea mooring and fore-aft trim control. This unmanned submersible design includes a modular payload section that can be used multiple times, up to 10 meters in length, 25.9 meters in total length after installation, and an internal volume of up to 56.6 cubic meters. It can carry a weight of 8 tons and is powered by an 18-kilowatt battery. And it can carry payloads that extend beyond its shell, so interfaces are reserved externally. Its payload bay can be reconfigured for a range of mission sets. The boat can carry Raytheon PROSAS PS60-6000 synthetic aperture sonar for seafloor mapping. The U.S. Navy first plans to use this space to lay mines, and also wants to install torpedoes, cruise missiles, and even drones to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), electronic warfare, anti-submarine/surface warfare and laying/removing mines.
The Orca will adopt an open-architecture modular design with the potential for reconfiguration. The navigation system of the Echo Voyager includes a Kalman filter inertial navigation unit (INU), a Doppler velocity log (DVL), a depth sensor and a long baseline (LBL) transponder. The mast is also equipped with GPS to support its operation on or near the water surface. Encrypted Inmarsat IV, Iridium, Wi-Fi and FreeWave communications are used for command, control and mission re-planning while the vehicle performs near-surface operations. The Orca is expected to be equipped with forward-looking sonar (FLS) and autonomous obstacle avoidance algorithms, which can perform seabed terrain tracking to avoid obstacles. The XLUUV will integrate a large number of interfaces so that it can be upgraded in the future to adapt to the latest technology and respond to evolving threats.
"This is the culmination of more than 10 years of groundbreaking work to develop a large-payload, long-range, fully autonomous underwater vehicle that can operate completely independently of the main vehicle," said Ann Stevens, Boeing’s vice president of maritime and intelligence systems, in a statement.
Future combat capabilities
The U.S. Navy is seeking to deploy a variety of unmanned underwater vehicles of various classes, of which the Orca is one of the largest. Once deployed, the highly silent and stealthy "Orca" can operate quietly over a large area for a long time. It can be used to target enemy shipyards and ports, lay mines in narrow waters such as rivers, and perform a variety of tasks. Therefore, it is a great threat to us. There are two ways to deal with it: passive and active. The passive way is to improve the design of the navy’s underwater monitoring network and work hard on its communication positioning, but it will cost a lot of money. On the other hand, we need to vigorously develop our own unmanned submarines and use unmanned against unmanned, which is also a more cost-effective way.
In terms of mine warfare, as early as the 1980s, the US military’s intelligent mines had a blockade width of tens of kilometers. Once it is combined with the concealed, mobile and unmanned "Orca" XLUUV, it is bound to pose a new quality equipment technology challenge and severe actual combat threat to major powers such as Russia. Specifically, a cluster of 4 to 9 "Orca" XLUUVs can be deployed at a time to deliver hundreds of tons of intelligent mines and tactical nuclear mines to target ports, straits and other waterways to blockade enemy surface ships and submarines. Since the underwater radiation noise, acoustic target intensity and other stealth indicators of the Orca XLUUV are significantly better than those of the US nuclear submarines, and it has the ability to maneuver underwater in shallow waters such as the continental shelf and port access channels, it will greatly enhance the strategic offensive mine warfare advantage of the US Navy. The Orca XLUUV releases the mine warfare mission requirements of attack nuclear submarines and turns to enhance its anti-ship and anti-submarine combat capabilities at the system level.
Similarly, the Orca XLUUV can also take advantage of its own submarine operations and use anti-mine mission components to clear the mines laid by the enemy in ports, key waterways and other locations, opening up safe routes for its own fleet. Its minesweeping efficiency is significantly higher than traditional minesweeping tools such as minesweepers, and as an unmanned platform, its minesweeping safety is greatly improved. In terms of intelligence reconnaissance and electronic warfare, the Orca XLUUV can take advantage of its own small target size, low signal strength, and difficulty in being discovered, lurking in relevant combat waters, and instantly transmit information to the rear through reconnaissance equipment, enhancing the one-way transparency of the maritime battlefield. The Killer Whale XLUUV will be mainly used to scout enemy fleets and coastlines, or deploy antennas that can detect electromagnetic radiation to accumulate a database of target characteristics such as electromagnetic spectrum fingerprints.
In terms of anti-ship operations, since the Killer Whale XLUUV weighs only 80 tons, excluding the empty weight, the number of anti-ship ammunition that can be carried is very limited. Therefore, in anti-ship warfare, it mainly plays a role similar to that of an assassin, achieving successful anti-ship combat goals by enhancing suddenness, rather than saturation attack capabilities.
Production and service plan
However, time delays and cost increases have plagued the mass production plan of the Orca unmanned underwater vehicle. In the plan, the first Orca should be delivered to the Navy in December 2020, and all five boats should be delivered to the Navy by the end of 2022 at the latest. As a result, a report by the US Government Accountability Office (GOA) in September 2022 found that Boeing did not resolve the key differences between Echo Voyager and Orca before manufacturing, so key components needed to be redesigned, resulting in delays. The impact of the new crown pandemic is also considered a factor in the delay. The GOA report also concluded that the entire plan cost at least $242 million, 64% higher than the initial cost estimate. This can also reflect that Boeing’s technical level is going downhill. Anyway, Boeing’s project delays in recent years are not once or twice. The gradual disappearance of the company’s traditional engineering culture and its unsatisfactory performance in various military projects have caused concern to the US military.
According to the original plan, by the end of 2025, the US Navy will have 4 to 9 "Orca" XLUUVs, relying on the US Navy’s naval base group on the edge of the Eurasian continent, to form actual combat capabilities such as underwater unmanned covert mine warfare (MIW)/intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)/electronic warfare (EW) mainly targeting strategic competitors such as Russia.
Around 2040, based on the XLUUV project roadmap and the latest shipbuilding plan, it is expected that the US Navy will put more than 40 XLUUVs into service, further strengthening offensive mine warfare (MIW) combat capabilities, "static braking" and "attacking the source and blocking the mouth" to attack enemy surface ships and submarines to seize sea control. At the same time, the third phase of the XLUUVs project will support XLUUV to adapt to more complex combat missions such as anti-submarine (ASW) and anti-ship (ASUW), and realize a more proactive "dynamic braking" sea control combat capability in a wider sea area.
Conclusion
“Killer Whale” XLUUV is the first ultra-large unmanned submarine model developed by the US Navy under the guidance of the national strategy of “great power competition” and the naval strategy of “returning to sea control”. It is a landmark equipment for the US military’s underwater warfare from the era of manned submarines to the era of human-machine integration. The priority development of mine warfare capabilities by “Killer Whale” XLUUV reflects that the US military is making full use of its maritime power and geographical advantages to enhance its comprehensive capabilities of maritime presence control and decisive battles. In terms of naval warfare theory, based on the advantages of underwater unmanned deep diving, “Killer Whale” XLUUV uses thousands of meters of deep sea not as a platform combat space, nor as a firepower penetration channel, but as a concealed delivery corridor.
From a technical point of view, the unmanned technology of platforms such as “Killer Whale” XLUUV is free from the physiological constraints of the human body, has no life environment control facilities, and allows a high proportion of The use of new technologies can greatly improve the performance envelope, making unmanned equipment have outstanding advantages such as low cost, good mission continuity, and strong maneuverability. Intelligent control can avoid accidents or delays caused by human errors to the greatest extent, adopt mutual learning and positive feedback to improve the intelligence level, and realize the inheritance and diffusion of knowledge and experience backup. However, the current weak artificial intelligence technology is not enough to support unmanned equipment as the main combat equipment for high-intensity wars between major powers: multi-domain joint, fierce game, open environment, and complex system. To this end, accurately positioning the system, clarifying the mission scenario, and accurately defining the mission profile have become the key to the current major powers developing unmanned equipment, giving full play to its advantages, and making engineering feasible. At the beginning of the XLUUVs project, the US Navy positioned the "Killer Whale" XLUUV mainly for mine warfare, using deep-sea concealed delivery channels and partially closed combat environments to reduce the intensity of offensive and defensive games and the complexity of tasks, which is worth learning from.
