Austal USA press release
EPF 13 is now the largest surface ship in the U.S. Navy fleet with autonomous capability. EPF 13 went to sea five times over a several-month duration allowing Austal USA and their industry partners, L3Harris and General Dynamics Mission Systems, to test and analyze not only her typical ship systems but those resulting from autonomous design and construction contract modifications required by the Navy to establish EPF 13 as an autonomous prototype.
With a shallow draft and high-speed, the EPF’s agility provides a positional advantage in the littorals and makes it an ideal candidate to prototype large vessel autonomous operations, including logistics, tendering and adjunct magazine mission profiles.
Fundamental to the autonomy effort was Austal USA’s highly automated in-house designed machinery control system (MCS), which allows the ship to be minimally manned by centralizing machinery operations to the bridge. All Spearhead-class EPFs built to date incorporate the Austal USA MCS design which is secure, scalable, distributive and reconfigurable for multiple propulsion configurations.
Combined with the already highly automated hull, mechanical & electrical systems installed on EPF class ships, Austal USA added automated maintenance, health monitoring, and mission readiness to provide EPF 13 with the capability to conduct up to 30 days of operation without human intervention.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/02/austal-usa-delivers-first-autonomous-capable-epf-ship-to-us-navy/