Autonomous undersea program advances with Navy contract
NewsMarch 18, 2025
ANNAPOLIS, Md. Northrop Grumman Systems won a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) worth a cumulative value of $24.88 million to advance the "Full Spectrum Undersea Warfare Innovative Naval Prototype Autonomous Undersea Exploitation" initiative, under which Northrop Grumman is working on research into technologies designed to enhance the U.S. Navy’s ability to perceive and respond to undersea threats autonomously.
According to the announcement from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the R&D effort focuses specifically on enhancing naval capabilities in autonomous underwater operations, including developing and testing advanced technologies for autonomous systems.
The DoD announcement says that the Northrop Grumman program will "push the state of the art in sonar-based perception and exploitation." Specialized algorithms and sensor systems -- related to sonar design, real-time processing, perception, and autonomy -- are required to understand and develop techniques to push autonomy sensing and reaction to ensure persistent systems are viable, the DoD states.
Work will be performed in Annapolis, Maryland, and is expected to be finished in March 2030.
