When a waterborne drone rescued the crew of a downed Army helicopter earlier this month off the coast of Oman, it marked the first time an unmanned vessel was used to rescue U.S. troops.
US Central Command said the Apache helicopter - carrying two crewmembers - was shot down by Iran. The autonomous sea drone that recovered the two soldiers was operated by the Navy.
"It's faster than waiting for the search and rescue helicopter to come out and find you," said Bryan Clark, a former Navy captain who works on policy at the Hudson Institute. "And they were able to basically take that unmanned vehicle and get them to a safer spot, and then the helicopter could pick them up and take them home."
The Navy has used this type of drone mainly for surveillance along the Iran coastline since the start of the war. Built by Saronic Technologies, a Texas company, the unmanned boats are 24 feet long. They look a little bit like small fishing boats without seats.
The Navy has been funding drone prototypes for years, even as it focused most of its resources on large warships. But Clark said the Pentagon began showing more interest in the technology in 2023, after Houthi rebels used both air and water-based drones against the U.S. in the Red Sea.
"Until maybe two years ago, I questioned the Navy's commitment because there just wasn't that much money going into them," he said. "They'd done a lot of experimentation and prototypes and demonstrations, and they really hadn't translated that into vehicles that were being bought at any scale."
Now, the defense budget includes billions of dollars for acquisition of all types of drones. To speed up the process, the Navy is setting up a marketplace for companies to sell their drones directly to the military and other potential federal buyers.
The Navy is testing prototypes for the first seven bidders and hopes to have a list of winners by September.
One of the manufacturers hoping to get a share of the waterborne drone market is Fairlead, a shipbuilder and repair company in Portsmouth, Virginia. It traditionally has focused most of its efforts on making components for big Navy warships, such as the future USS Enterprise, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier it's currently helping to build. Fairlead is also building parts for a Columbia class submarine.
That part of its business is booming, but with the Navy’s emphasis on drones, Fairlead is also working on an unmanned ship design with the defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp.
"They had the technology, but they needed an experienced shipbuilder," said Fairlead CEO Fred Pasquine.
Fairlead will build the roughly 50-foot-long boat hulls. Company Vice President Todd Babcock said the Navy wants manufacturers that can produce a lot of vessels quickly.
"I think those that can do it will play out favorably," Babcock said. "I think it all comes down to, 'Are you a boutique provider? Are you really a legitimate contender in the unmanned market?'"
The Navy is looking for designs that can do things like locate mines, help conduct electronic warfare to interfere with incoming fire, or essentially be waterborne guided missiles. Many of the sea drones are small enough to be loaded into containers and sent on Navy ships.
The Marines also are interested in an unmanned boat that can deliver supplies to the beach under fire.
Large shipbuilders have limited capacity. The next Ford-class aircraft carriers are behind schedule, including Enterprise, while American manufacturers are straining to produce enough submarines to meet the Navy’s demand.
But capacity isn’t an issue for the smaller drone market, Clark said.
"The US is the largest boat building industry in the world," he said. "And that’s a great opportunity. You can go to these boat builders when you need a bunch of vessels built and build them, and then those builders can go back to building commercial vessels."
This story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans.
