The Super-Fast Submerged Transport program or Underwater Express under development at DARPA will explore the application of supercavitation technology to underwater vehicles, enabling high speed transport of personnel and/ or supplies.
The inherent advantages of traveling underwater are: the ability to transit clandestinely, no radar or visible signature, and avoidance of rough sea conditions that may limit or deny mission execution.
Artist’s Concept
Supercavitating places the vehicle inside a cavity where vapor replaces the water, and drag due to fluid viscosity is reduced by orders of magnitude, thus reducing the power requirement dramatically. This program will use modeling, simulation, and experiments and testing to develop the understanding of the physical phenomena associated with supercavitation and the application to underwater vehicles.
Innovative failsafe controls will be required for stability and maneuverability at speed. The program will culminate in an at-sea demonstration of an unmanned vehicle capable of fully wetted to supercavitating operations and autonomous maneuvering.
Now under development by a partnership that includes the Naval Undersea Warfare Center at Newport, R.I., the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Carderock, Md., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), General Dynamics, and several other contractors, with input from a couple of engineering schools at major U.S. universities, the fi rst scale-model prototypes of Underwater Express are expected to be tested next year.
The Soviet Union manufactured and deployed the Shkval (translated “squall”) torpedo in the 1990s. It is said to move as quickly as 500 kilometers an hour, once it reaches a speed sufficient to generate the supercavitation space. Shkval is now a mainstay of the Russian navy’s weapons inventory, not to mention a popular item on the international arms market. China and Iran both have Shkvals in their fl eets. But while Shkval is easily the fastest and most dangerous torpedo in the world right now, it lacks maneuverability.
Shkval torpedo
Credit: FAS
Credit: warfare.ru
DARPA’s team is designing and building a free-running vehicle, about two feet in diameter and 24 feet long, to run out on a range to show that we can actually control [it] while supercavitating,” says Jennifer B. Panosky, who has oversight over Underwater Express as the program manager for advanced programs and future payloads with General Dynaics.
The goal is to show that Underwater Express can be controlled at a depth change of 10 feet, plus or minus one foot, as per DARPA’s requirements.
Once complete, the project will move into “Phase III” (the initial test being a combination of the first two original phases) almost immediately. This time, the goal will be to make the prototype model travel at a speed of 100 knots for 10 minutes. A deployable vehicle, capable of moving personnel and gear, is still years away. The DARPA program’s goal is to prove supercavitation works, not to develop an autonomous vehicle.
FY 2009 Accomplishments:
- Developed vehicle control system and algorithms.
- Conducted extensive simulation testing with increasing vehicle and environmental fidelity.
- Conducted modeling, simulations, and experiments to refine understanding of cavity and vehicle control and stability.
- Continued development of vehicle design including propulsion system design and integration, and design, fabrication and testing of a scaled prototype vehicle.
FY 2010 Plans:
- Complete design, fabrication and component testing of a scaled vehicle.
- Conduct initial at-sea testing of a scaled vehicle.
- Analyze vehicle performance for speed, power and stability.
- Complete development of vehicle control system.
- Modify vehicle systems for at-sea testing series based on testing results.
FY 2011 Base Plans:
- Complete at-sea testing of a scaled vehicle.
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