First Replicator Initiative Capability on Track for August, Officials Say

January 28, 2025 8:32 PM
Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Crafts Operate off of Coronado in 2024. US Navy Photo

SAN DIEGO — The first iteration of lethal swarms of unmanned vehicles and the software that binds them together is set to reach viability by August, Navy officials said on Tuesday.
The Replicator initiative, begun as a Department of Defense effort in 2023, will meet the goal set by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Kath Hicks to stand up the first series of systems for the program, Capt. Alex Campbell, the maritime portfolio director of the Defense Innovation Unit said on Tuesday at the West 2025 conference co-hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute and AFCEA.

The first tranche of Replicator was created to link surface, subsurface drones and loitering munitions to create a “hellscape” that would prevent the Chinese invasion. The second tranche, announced last year, focuses the effort on countering hostile drones.

“It’s not another [science and technology] project. It is meant to get to production, meant to field systems, in this case, in support of [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command],” Campbell said.
“It’s a lot of taking… a pretty wide and diverse set of systems and a wide and diverse set of software, and smashing them all together at a pace that is really more akin to commercial software tempos.”

Replicator, overseen by DIU, is part of the Pentagon’s wider effort to quickly stitch together capabilities via common software to tackle problems faster than the standard acquisition system allows, members said at the Tuesday morning panel.

The panel, which included Naval Information Warfare Systems Command commander Rear Adm. Seiko Okano, the Navy’s director of integrated warfare Rear Adm. Christopher Sweeney and Chris Brose with Anduril, stressed the framework of the initiative as a way to quickly field disparate systems.

“We had had kind of a one-size-fits-all for everything, and I think now we’re learning. There are systems that we can do at a more rapid pace,” Okano said.

The process is prompting how the Navy is thinking about requirements for autonomous systems, Sweeney said.

“Robots for what? We have some things we’re using robotic, autonomous systems [but those] might not be the thing that transitions to the hybrid fleet. Frankly, I don’t know. We need to learn. We need to fail and adapt,” he said.

Brose said adapting requirements was key to the effort and could translate to other sectors of acquisition across the DoD.

“It’s okay to say out loud that with this we don’t know what our requirements are. The program is going to be inherently fluid. The resources are going to need to be fluid. You’re going to be onboarding and off boarding companies, probably pretty quickly,” Brose said.
“And all of this is going to have to be hashed out in a real-world environment, with the government providing sort of a laser focus on the operational problems that industry needs to solve, and that’s just very different than the way the Defense Department typically thinks about programs.”

U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Steve Koehler made the call for more lethal and inexpensive systems during his keynote on Tuesday. He wants more systems in the hands of sailors to experiment with and field quickly.

However, questions remain over funding and operating the final systems between the services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Last year, the Pentagon set aside about $1 billion to fund the first tranche of Replicator and the Navy has stood up its own units to operate systems that have been identified as part of the Replicator ecosystem.

In May, the “Hell Hounds” of Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron 3 received the first four Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft. The uncrewed GARCs are one of the few identified Replicator programs that will be part of the first tranche, however neither the Navy nor the Pentagon have disclosed how the U.S. plans to implement the systems that could grow to the hundreds.

Eventually, the Navy’s goal is to develop a hybrid fleet of manned and unmanned craft and the underlying connective command and control and software decisions that are part of Replicator will inform the effort.

“How does that all get knitted together across all domains, from space to the undersea? And then how does all that learning lead to the hybrid fleet,” Sweeny said. “What does that fleet look like in the future?”

Sam LaGrone

Sam LaGrone

Sam LaGrone is the editor of USNI News. He has covered legislation, acquisition and operations for the Sea Services since 2009 and spent time underway with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and the Canadian Navy.
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