Undersea Communications Between Submarines and Unmanned Undersea Vehicles in a Command and Control Denied Environment

Nuclear powered submarines can stay submerged for days at a time and only have to come to periscope depth (PD) for communications and minor house-keeping items. Submarines are completely reliant on satellites for communications and orders from their commanders ashore. A command and control denied environment (C2DE) is an area in which communications are jammed or degraded. There is no technology currently available that allows submarines to conduct communications in a C2DE. The only method currently available is for the submarine to navigate to unaffected waters, conduct all of its communications, and then to travel back to the C2DE, wasting valuable time and possibly compromising the submarine’s mission.