Development of UUV Standards, an Emerging Trend

In response to an expression of interest by the U.S. Navy, ASTM International and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) embarked upon the process of developing technical standards for unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs.) In 2005 a formal committee was formed under ASTM's established and recognized standards development procedures. ASTM Committee F41 on Unmanned Vehicle Systems is working on the development of technical standards for autonomy, mission payloads, sensors, communications interfaces and data. These standards are initially intended to support the U.S. Navy Mission Reconfigurable UUV System (MRUUVS) program. They will be referenced in the MRUUVS request for proposals and ideally they will improve the eventual MRUUV system. This paper discusses the history of the standards development, the content of the standards which will go to ballot in June 2005 and the potential applicability of these standards to UUVs beyond the U.S. Navy's large diameter UUV programs