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" In 2010, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began work on a 132-foot autonomous ship to track and monitor submarines. Now,\u00A0the 140-ton drone is finally nearing completion. On October 27, at the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems international conference, DARPA announced that the vessel, currently under construction at the Vigor Shipyard on the coast of Oregon, is about 90 percent complete and will commence sea trials in January or February of 2016.\u00A0Testing operations for the ACTUV will continue for two years near Point Loma in San Diego.\u00A0 All of the hardware has been\u00A0completed on the autonomous ship, known as the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV). Engineers are currently working to complete the software systems\u00A0that will allow the ACTUV to remotely operate at sea for months at a time.  The primary function of the ACTUV will be to track down elusive submarines and automatically trail them for extended periods of time.\u00A0Scott Littlefield, DARPA Tactical Technology Office program manager, says\u00A0a major advantage of the ACTUV\u00A0is that the autonomous craft will cost between $15,000 and $20,000 per day to operate, compared to the $700,000 per day operation costs of a fully-manned destroyer.\u00A0At the October conference, Littlefield also said that the Navy is exploring a variety of potential mission applications for the ACTUV, such as naval mine detection. The ACTUV is nearing completion at a time when Russia is expanding its\u00A0submarine program, and the new vessel could be very\u00A0useful as Russian military activity increases in the Atlantic and Arctic. Although there is no plan to install a weapons system on the ACTUV (current Pentagon policies prohibit fully autonomous systems from using deadly force), Littlefield\u00A0mentioned that another advantage to the ACTUV is its ability to carry heavier payloads than autonomous craft launched from ships at sea. Sources: Motherboard, SEAPOWER Magazine\u00A0 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a18139/darpa-submarine-hunting-drone-actuv/>