Heard at Sea-Air-Space 25: Software and Unmanned Systems are the Key to Navy Fleet Readiness
In the face of evolving global threats, the U.S. Navy is under growing pressure to enhance the readiness of its platforms. During the opening keynote of Sea-Air-Space 25 last week, Navy admirals emphasized the urgent need for action, advocating for the adoption of cutting-edge technologies.
The Navy has set an ambitious goal: to achieve 80 percent combat surge ready (CSR) posture for its surface warships, aircraft carriers, and submarines by 2027, meaning they’re operational in a moment’s notice. This marks a significant jump from the current readiness levels of 67 percent for submarines, 68 percent for surface ships, and 70 percent for carriers, according to Sea Power Magazine.
The main takeaway from the keynote was that reaching this target hinges on several key factors: ensuring maintenance is completed on time, rethinking traditional approaches to manning these platforms — i.e. leveraging more unmanned systems — and tackling long-standing sustainment issues. But that’s no surprise.
Platform readiness has been a growing problem for decades now, having originated during the War on Terror. The military has long struggled with maintaining readiness, especially as it ramped up the pace and frequency of deployments during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which put heavy strain on troops and equipment.
However, momentum seems to be shifting in the right direction. The fact that platform readiness took center stage during the conference’s opening keynote and was increasingly prevalent on attendees’ minds at the event signals that the issue is receiving the high-level attention it demands. This is further reinforced by a recent Executive Order from the White House focused on restoring America’s maritime dominance.
A Growing Demand for Software and Adoption of Unmanned Systems
A recurring theme during conversation at Sea-Air-Space was the hunger for digital engineering tools to strengthen fleet readiness. There’s growing recognition for software to improve understanding of the state of the platforms and optimize their maintenance for mission compatibility. This often involves lower costs and faster upgrades and deployments.
The problem, however, lies in the DoD acquisition process which is still very much a hardware-centric approach. A recent memo from the Secretary of Defense recognized this limitation and stated it’s a top priority for DoD to “reform its acquisition processes in order to acquire, deliver, and iterate on our weapon and business systems — including software — at speed and scale for our Warfighter.” This is a promising step in the right direction to enhance the readiness of the Navy’s platforms at scale.
Another major talking point: the need to accelerate adoption of unmanned systems. Today, many large and costly manned assets like destroyers, submarines, and aircraft are being used for missions that could be handled more efficiently and safely by smaller, unmanned alternatives.
Making Autonomy Smarter
Integer engineers test its AI on an autonomous vessel.
While autonomy is playing a growing role in fleet readiness, today’s autonomous systems often fall short of human adaptability, particularly in predicting future outcomes. At Integer Technologies, we’re helping to close that gap.
Our defense tech and software engineering is helping autonomous systems operate more effectively in highly contested, low-bandwidth communications environments. This, in turn, helps human operators and unmanned systems achieve better results and operational outcomes.
Our decision-making digital engineering portfolio is rooted in real world physics modeling, AI, and a data driven approach to amplify the platform’s built-in autonomous system capabilities. Our software — which is agnostic and integrates with any autonomy stack — builds a model that simulates the health of a vessel and the behavior of other agents in the battlespace to help operators think several steps ahead and make smarter decisions.
Our technology portfolio enables:
- Improved coordination and situational awareness in degraded communications environments
- Enhanced navigation, object detection, and collision avoidance
- Optimized power and energy use across manned and unmanned systems
- Predictive, AI-powered recommendations for how to optimize the outcome of your mission plan
Driving Operational Success Through Smarter Systems
The defense landscape is experiencing an overload of data, making it difficult to manage and process. Whether coordinating a fleet of autonomous vehicles during a mission or fine-tuning advanced manufacturing processes, we’re helping military and industry customers harness all of that information to achieve their operational goals.
At Integer, we’re not just modernizing systems, we’re making them more intuitive, predictive, and mission aligned. By turning data into actionable intelligence, we’re contributing to a more agile and resilient military.
Readiness isn’t just about being prepared, it’s about staying ahead, and we’re proud to be building technologies that help make that possible.