On April 7, 2016, in Portland, Oregon, DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar christened a 130-foot unmanned trimaran named Sea Hunter. The vessel was the prototype of DARPA’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program, an effort to build a surface ship that could operate for extended periods without a single crew member aboard.
DARPA described the ship as able to “traverse thousands of kilometers over the open seas for month at a time, without a single crew member aboard.” Its intended missions were submarine tracking and countermine activities. The christening marked the vessel’s transition from a DARPA-led design and construction project to a stage of open-water testing conducted jointly with the Office of Naval Research. The ceremony was attended by Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work and senior US Navy officials.
Sea Hunter stood out because it was designed from the keel up to operate autonomously rather than to be remotely piloted by a distant crew. The program aimed to show that a relatively low-cost robotic ship could perform persistent, long-duration missions that would be costly and tedious for crewed vessels, while complying with the maritime rules of the road.
The vessel later transferred fully to the Office of Naval Research for continued development. As one of the first ocean-going autonomous warships, Sea Hunter became an early reference point in discussions about how much independence military systems should be given at sea.