A private company has unveiled a new autonomous warship for the U.S. Navy that is slated to be completed before year’s end.
The Boston-based technology and shipbuilding company Blue Water Autonomy announced on Wednesday that construction on its first vessel, the Liberty Class, will commence this March at Conrad Shipyard in Louisiana. The vessel is designed in partnership with Damen, a Dutch shipbuilding company that for nearly a century has produced a variety of vessels including defense ships and mega-yachts.
Liberty is described as a 190-foot steel autonomous ship with a range exceeding 10,000 nautical miles. It has more than 150 metric tons of payload capacity.
“The Liberty class reflects our focus on building autonomous ships that are designed from the start for long-duration operations and repeat production,” Rylan Hamilton, CEO of Blue Water Autonomy, said in a press release. “By adapting a proven hull and re-engineering it for unmanned operations, we’re delivering a vessel that can operate for extended periods without crew while being produced at a pace the Navy urgently needs.”
This is a modern take on an old idea: building capable ships quickly and at scale.
These efforts are intended to conform to the Navy’s intentions to expand its fleet capacity and to do so by accelerating ship builds such as these.
Details and Specs
The Liberty vessel will be built on Damen’s Stan Patrol 6009 hull design, selected due to its Axe Bow—described as “a distinctive, vertical bow that slices cleanly through the waves, minimizing slamming and allowing more gradual wave re-entry.”
More than 300 Axe Bow vessels currently operate across the world. The Stan Patrol 6009 hull design has also been deployed across multiple commercial and government programs.
“The Axe Bow hull was designed for demanding operational requirements, from speed and range to seakeeping,” Mark Honders, design and license manager at Damen, said in a statement. “Seeing the Stan Patrol 6009 adapted for autonomous operation underscores the flexibility of the design and demonstrates how proven commercial designs can serve new and emerging maritime missions.”
Officials with Blue Water and Damen said the hull shape offers proven performance that reduces technical risk, providing more time and capability on the engineering end of the project design affiliated with autonomous operation.
The hull’s performance, payload capacity and seakeeping characteristics will be retained and support months-long deployment and serial production.
The vessel was reportedly redesigned from the inside out. It all started with the engine room and work continued through the ship’s mechanical and electrical systems, and later autonomous configuration of fault-tolerant propulsion systems.
The 10,000-nautical-mile figure emanates from the automated control and fault management system that involves “limited human intervention on months-long deployments.”
Blue Water, which has worked with over 100 world class suppliers, said it has developed Liberty entirely with private capital. The Conrad Shipyard boasts five yards and roughly 1,100 employees who produce 30-plus ships per year.
“Conrad has a long history of building complex vessels for both commercial and government customers,” Cecil Hernandez, president and CEO of Conrad Shipyard, said in a statement. “We have the infrastructure, workforce and production readiness to begin construction and support serial builds, helping translate advanced vessel designs into operational capacity.”
