Deep sea reach is important to Navies which can collect the information about enemy submarines as well as carry out their own operations undetected. China continues to make progress in deep sea exploration following the three-month mission of a new underwater glider in the South China Sea, which experts said will also help in maritime warfare.
Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued a broad agency announcement in Jan 2019 (HR001119S0009) for the Angler project for new capabilities in autonomous exploration and manipulation on the seafloor. U.S. Military researchers are asking the defense industry to develop a deep-diving unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) and control system able to find and manipulate objects in deep-ocean environments.
Angler seeks to migrate advancements from terrestrial and space-based robotics, terrestrial autonomous manipulation, and underwater sensing technologies into the realm of undersea manipulation, with specific focus on long-distance, seabed-based missions. Specifically, the program aims to discover innovative autonomous robotic solutions capable of navigating unstructured ocean depths, surveying expansive underwater regions, and physically manipulating manmade objects of interest.
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