AAI Corp., Textron Systems Corp. Unmanned Systems segment in Hunt Valley, was awarded a $20 million contract modification for engineering and technical services for the Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS) Unmanned Surface Vehicle program.
According to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Defense, UISS is the system which will allow the Littoral Combat Ship to perform its mine warfare sweep mission.
Unmanned Influence Sweep System is part of the Mine Countermeasures Mission Package (MCM MP), which uses a system-of-systems approach to target specific portions of the water column and segments of the MCM detect-to-engage sequence.
UISS will target acoustic, magnetic, and magnetic/acoustic combination mine types. The UISS program will satisfy the Navy’s need for a rapid, wide-area coverage mine clearance capability, required to neutralize magnetic/acoustic influence mines. UISS seeks to provide a high area coverage rate in a small, lightweight package with minimal impact on the host platform.
According to a January report from the U.S. Navy, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Mission Module Program already successfully completed shipboard integration testing of UISS unmanned system onboard USS Independence (LCS 2).
During these integration events, both the UISS successfully verified the communications link between Independence and the unmanned systems as well as executed multiple launch and recovery evolutions from the ship. These test events mark a critical milestone for the LCS Mission Module Program, having now successfully tested each vehicle in the MCM MP (that is, an MH-60S helicopter, MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter, UISS and Knifefish UUV) onboard an Independence-variant LCS.
