Hybrid Fleet Research Program
CNA’s Hybrid Fleet Research Program coordinates all analyses that support the fielding of naval robotic and autonomous systems (RAS). We organize our work for the Navy, Marine Corps, and joint force around two primary categories:
Non-traditional sea denial (NTSD): Recent conflicts demonstrate the growing reliance on small, increasingly autonomous systems to enable targeting and lethality. CNA is deeply involved in technical, experimental, tactical, and operational analyses to support the joint force’s rapid testing, selection, and employment of new NTSD capabilities.
Hybrid Fleet Architecture: The Navy’s future fleet must integrate small attritable systems, larger uncrewed platforms, and the conventional battle force to achieve affordability and decisive effects in all phases of conflict. CNA analysts are essential partners in supporting the Navy’s iterative development of a future force architecture and the concepts underlying hybrid fleet employment.
Across both categories, CNA’s experts deliver empirically grounded insights across a wide range of analyses, including assessing:
- Doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policy
- Force design, warfighting requirements, and the innovation industrial base
- Fleet, naval, and allied operationalization
- Technical evaluation and experimentation
- Adversary uncrewed systems employment
- Drones Over Ukraine
- The Calm Before the Swarm: Drone Warfare at Sea in the Age of the Missile
- The US Navy Risks Outsourcing Control of Its Drones
- How the West Can Match Russia in Drone Innovation
- To Robot or Not to Robot? Past Analysis of Russian Military Robotics and Today’s War in Ukraine
- Battlefield Drones and the Accelerating Autonomous Arms Race in Ukraine
Most of the products for the Hybrid Fleet Research Program are classified or have distribution limited to the Department of Defense. Readers with appropriate credentials can find some of these reports on the CNA SIPR site.