By AI Trends Staff As the US Navy strives to get to a 355-ship fleet by 2034, part of a 30-year plan the Navy outlined in 2019, it is finding it economical to use underwater autonomous vehicles. They meet many of the requirements of larger submarines at a fraction of the cost. For example, the Navy awarded Boeing a $43-million contract to build four Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs) last year, described in a release from USNI News . Boeing based its winning Orca XLUUV design on its Echo Voyager unmanned diesel-electric submersible. The 51-foot-long submersible is launched from a pier and can operate autonomously while sailing up to 6,500 nautical miles without being connected to a manned mother ship, according to the Navy. In military spending terms, the versatility of the Orca at the price is “fairly unheard of in military spending,” according to an account in The National Interest . The nearest equivalent was cited as the Navy’s Littoral Com
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