Inside the Marine Corps' project to automate the journey through key 'last mile' - Breaking...

Amid the US Navy’s hyperactive interest in advancing unmanned maritime drones, the Marine Corps has been developing an autonomous navigation kit built specifically for closing the critical “last mile” where amphibious watercraft meet cluttered, rough beaches — areas especially vulnerable during combat.

The effort has been dubbed the “Autonomous Littoral Connector,” and while its mission is harder than it sounds, the tech is wading towards operational use, according to exclusive interviews with officials from the forward-leaning Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.

“It’s [making it through] that last mile with as little risk as possible, knowing that we’ll be in a contested environment,” Lt. Col. Timothy Smith, an officer at MCWL overseeing the program, told Breaking Defense. The whole premise of the Autonomous Littoral Connector is “about reducing risk, and that means people.”