The Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle (LUSV) is an

unmanned surface vessel An unmanned surface vehicle, unmanned surface vessel or uncrewed surface vessel (USV), colloquially called a drone boat, drone ship or sea drone, is a boat or ship that operates on the surface of the water without a crew. USVs operate with v ...

designed for the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

and set to begin construction in 2020. Designed to be low-cost, high-endurance, reconfigurable ships based on commercial designs, they will have the capacity for modular payloads such as anti-ship, anti-submarine or anti-air weapons. Capable of operating with human operators in the loop, the Navy envisions the ships operating alongside fleets as scouts and magazine ships. $209.2 million of funding for the initial two LUSVs, set to begin construction in 2020, was included in the 2020 Defense Appropriations Bill, with plans to buy eight more over the five-year projection known as the Future Years Defense Program. As of September 2023 the US Navy budget submission for financial year (FY) 2024 planned for one LUSV to be procured in FY2025, two in FY 2026, and three each in FY2027 and 2028, at costs of around

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

250 million each.

References

{{Reflist Ships of the United States Navy Unmanned surface vehicles of the United States

See also

References