HII breaks ground on new facility for unmanned technologies
US-based shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is building a new facility to produce and test unmanned naval technologies.
HII broke ground on the Unmanned Systems Center of Excellence at Hampton on 22 September.
The campus will include two buildings with digital manufacturing infrastructure, covering a total area of more than 157,000ft2 (14,600m2). The first 22,000ft2 building will be completed by the end of this 2020, followed by the main 135,000ft2 facility in Q4 2021.
The Unmanned Systems Center of Excellence will be reconfigurable for different production and systems integration projects and have precision machining capabilities, a surface finishing area and a dedicated welding space.
‘With [the] US Navy’s increasing demand for UUVs and USVs, we are committed to investing in and expanding our unmanned systems capabilities,’ said Andy Green, HII executive vice president and president of HII Technical Solutions. ‘Our new Unmanned Systems Center of Excellence will ensure we can continue to provide our customers with the most advanced autonomous systems across all class sizes.’
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