Undersea Domain

The undersea domain encompasses technologies and operations conducted below the water’s surface. Within the civil sector, this is commonly described as the underwater environment.

AMTI’s work will focus primarily on civil underwater applications in ports, harbors, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, littoral waters, coastal areas, and offshore environments. These applications include infrastructure inspection, hydrographic surveying, mapping, environmental monitoring, asset management, emergency response, and underwater data collection.

The undersea designation also recognizes the domain’s maritime-security, military, and dual-use applications, as well as the need to integrate civil and military technologies when operational requirements overlap.

Beneath the water’s surface lies critical transportation, communications, energy, municipal, and security infrastructure—as well as environmentally sensitive areas that can be difficult, dangerous, and expensive to access using traditional methods.

Autonomous underwater vehicles, uncrewed underwater vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, and advanced sensing systems are changing how underwater environments and infrastructure are inspected, mapped, monitored, maintained, and protected.

The Advanced Mobility Technologies Institute (AMTI) works across industry, academia, government, and the military to research, evaluate, integrate, and deploy advanced underwater technologies in real-world operating environments.

The broader underwater ecosystem includes transportation and maritime agencies, infrastructure owners, port and waterway authorities, environmental agencies, vehicle operators, research institutions, technology developers, and military organizations.

Underwater systems can perform missions in environments that are hazardous, difficult to access, time-consuming, or costly for divers and crewed vessels.

These technologies can reduce personnel risk, extend operational reach, expand inspection capabilities, and improve the quality, frequency, and usefulness of underwater data collection.

AMTI’s underwater work may address:

AMTI advances underwater capabilities through applied research and development, mission design, systems integration, testing and evaluation, operational demonstration, and deployment support.

Our work considers the entire mission system—not only the underwater vehicle, but also its sensors, payloads, navigation, communications, energy, launch and recovery, human supervision, data processing, cybersecurity, reliability, and integration with surface, shoreside, and airborne systems.

Underwater operations require specialized expertise and close coordination among technology developers, vehicle operators, infrastructure owners, regulators, researchers, environmental organizations, government agencies, and military partners.

AMTI supports workforce development through applied education, hands-on training, and industry-aligned learning in:

Explore the other domains

Air Domain →  ·  Surface Domain →  ·  Sea Domain →