GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) — The University of Southern Mississippi and Integer Technologies have been awarded a $9.8 million option exercise contract modification from the Office of Naval Research for the next phase of their Intelligent Autonomous Systems for Seabed Warfare program.
The modification brings the total cumulative contract value to $24.8 million and supports continued development of software for autonomous undersea missions.
The program centers on unmanned vessels equipped with sonar detectors used to inspect subsurface infrastructure and detect underwater explosives. The autonomous design allows the Navy to conduct those missions while minimizing risk to personnel.
“Mining is not a new strategy within the defense world, and we’ve been able to do some countermeasures to this mining,” said Josh Knight, COO and co-founder of Integer. “We’ve been able to find where the mines are at and let our boys know where they’re at without sending men in danger — or men or women in danger — so knowing that we know where they’re at and what to do about it.”
Knight also noted the vessels’ role in infrastructure monitoring. “If we have critical infrastructure that’s maybe under attack, we only want to go and check those things out,” he said. “We can go inspect those and know what’s going on and say, hey, something’s occurred here.”
The contract modification funds continued research and development of an operational decision support tool that will allow unmanned vessels to operate for longer periods of time and adapt more effectively to changing ocean conditions with minimal human intervention.
Integer is partnering with USM’s oceanography and ocean engineering students to create software models for unmanned platforms. Integer’s facility at USM’s Roger F. Wicker Center for Ocean Enterprise at the Port of Gulfport provides direct ocean access for testing.
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