USN Building Unmanned ASW Test Center
Work is beginning on a $9.9 million Unmanned Anti-Submarine Warfare Support Facility, which will be located at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division, Newport. A World War II era building, originally built as a steam plant on the waterfront of Narragansett Bay, will be converted to support integrated testing and evaluation of USVs (Unmanned surface Vehicles) and UUVs (Unmanned Undersea Vehicles) on the Narragansett Range. The instrumented range will be used for testing UUVs and USVs, swimmer delivery systems, payloads, torpedoes, targets, underwater surveillance, swimmer defense systems and related undersea technologies.
The architectural and engineering design portion of the project was awarded March 6/09 to AECOM Services, Inc. of Roanoke, VA. Construction is expected to begin in May 2010, with the building’s new tenants expecting to move in around November 2011. US Navy release.
