VESSEL REVIEW | Quickfish – Compact naval ASV for interception missions

San Diego-based unmanned systems manufacturer Seasats recently unveiled a new type of autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) for naval applications including interdiction and intercept.

Seasats said a recent exercise conducted with the US Navy successfully demonstrated many of the Quickfish ASV's capabilities, including top speeds of over 35 knots, payload modularity, and intuitive autonomy interfaces.

“Several factors make this vessel unique, including its ground-up design for autonomy, its integrated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) launch bay, and its combination of speed and loitering capabilities,” Seasats told Baird Maritime.

A US defence operator has already purchased one example of the ASV to accelerate its maritime autonomy programs, and international partners in Australia, the Philippines and Japan have signed agreements with Seasats for local manufacturing and distribution of the craft for their own use.

Can be configured for reconnaissance and limited strike

“The first Quickfish was purchased by a US defence prime whose needs align with many other customers’ needs,” said Seasats. “Specifically, it required an unmanned vessel that can quickly respond to threats, evaluate them, and take action accordingly. It must be fast, reliable, simple to maintain, manufacturable at scale, and able to accommodate a variety of payloads.”

The 17-foot (5.2-metre), 1,600-pound (730kg) ASV improves upon Seasats' earlier unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) that have multi-month sensing capabilities. Unlike the USVs, however, the ASV was designed with an intercept capability.

Quickfish was built to be capable of detecting unauthorised vessels, responding quickly to provide a deterring show of force, and using its onboard sensors and UAVs to collect more data to inform additional response assets if needed. In a conflict setting, the ASV can also be deployed with kinetic and non-kinetic weapons.

“The world’s oceans cover far too much area for crewed assets to monitor and safeguard,” said Seasats. “Even when narrowing the focus to key coastlines and corridors, there are still many unguarded areas. Fleets of Quickfish, teamed with other crewed and uncrewed platforms, can cover those gaps, reducing the need for sailors to do work that is dangerous yet essential.”

The ASV is powered by a commercially available jet drive paired with an electric motor. This combination enables both high-speed response and persistent loitering. The jet drive also has the benefits of safety, commercial availability, and serviceability.

“The combination of high-power drive with extended loiter capability is new,” the builder said. “Other platforms of this size can go fast for short periods, but the ability to go fast after loitering for days or weeks is unique.”

Off-the-shelf components for ease of operations and servicing

Quickfish also uses Seasats’ electronics stack, which is a compact system that combines commercial off-the-shelf components with custom-designed modules to provide full vehicle control and diagnostics.

“It has been operationally proven in trans-oceanic voyages on Lightfish,” Seasats told Baird Maritime, referring to an earlier unmanned craft that had also been developed by the company. “It also uses Seasats’ autonomy package and command and control system, ensuring intuitive and safe operations.”

The electronics suite includes several electro-optical cameras, a thermal camera, a lidar, and a radar. It also has an actuated hatch that opens to reveal a bay that can store and launch a variety of UAVs.

“Quickfish was designed from the start to include a large UAV bay and no pilot. This reflects Seasats’ focus on building fully autonomous, mission-ready products.”

Optimised for large-scale production

The craft can run onboard machine learning models that can detect and classify other vessels using its cameras. Its modularity can meanwhile enable rapid payload integration, but it also makes the ASV an ideal platform for integration with existing command and control architectures.

“We had to balance a variety of goals here,” Seasats remarked when asked about design issues that needed to be overcome in designing the ASV. “Specifically, we needed to make a high-performance hull, but it had to be manufacturable in large quantities.”

The builder said it also had to have the capacity and modularity to carry a variety of payloads.

“This was tough, but it helped that we were designing on top of infrastructure that had already been built out for the earlier Lightfish. The communications, controls, and much of the electronics are shared between the two product lines, which accelerates things a lot.”

Seasats said that, overall, the development of the ASV proved satisfactory, as the company’s engineering and build teams succeeded in working across powertrain, hull construction, and sensor and payload integrations.

“One of the most valuable things [we learned in building Quicksfish] was building relationships with manufacturing partners,” Seasats told Baird Maritime. “To help accelerate our builds, we can outsource Quickfish hull construction, just sending flat-packed aluminium sheets to maritime construction experts for assembly.

“We’ll also be expanding our facilities more, but having built and tested these relationships will help us scale up Quickfish production quickly.”