NCMS to Test Ship Maintenance Tech in Navy’s New REPTX Event  

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — NCMS will assist the U.S. Navy in keeping ships in top shape while at sea through the new Repair Technology Exercise (REPTX), taking place Aug. 22 through Sept. 2 at Naval Base Ventura County, the consortium said Aug. 24.  

More than 60 technology suppliers are testing their products’ capacity to tackle real-world fleet maintenance challenges, including assessing and repairing potential battle damage during REPTX’s 12 days of technical demonstrations and field experiments aboard the Navy’s Self Defense Test Ship, an asset of Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division..  

REPTX offers a unique opportunity to evaluate innovative products and services that could potentially help Sailors carry out the repairs needed to keep them underway. Industry and academic participants were identified and vetted via NCMS’s engagement with its network of hundreds of innovative technology solutions providers.  

“Our priorities as a warfare center are to deliver and sustain readiness, modernize and maintain the current fleet, and field the surface fleet of the future,” said Capt. Andrew Hoffman, NSWC PHD commanding officer. “REPTX demonstrates these priorities by allowing both industry, government and academia to work side-by-side while exploring innovative maintenance concepts that we can rapidly deliver to our forward-deployed warfighters.”  

REPTX participants include private industry, academia and government that will demonstrate technologies designed to address four focus areas: visualization, command and control aids, forward manufacturing and expeditionary maintenance.   

During REPTX, the technology suppliers will test their solutions on NSWC PHD’s Self Defense Test Ship, a 563-foot-long decommissioned Spruance-class destroyer the Navy uses to evaluate naval weapons and emerging technologies.  

Naval Sea Systems Command’s Naval Systems Engineering and Logistics Directorate Technology Office selected 65 technologies to take part in the event, including unmanned aerial vehicles and submersibles, additive manufacturing equipment, ship-to-shore communication systems, inspection and repair tools, and above- and below-water visualization devices.    

REPTX will immerse the technologies in a variety of shipboard scenarios, such as loss of lighting, an unidentified object on the hull, pipe corrosion and leakage, and damage to the ship’s superstructure.  

“The format will provide a realistic fielding environment, both pier-side and underway, allowing teams the chance to field, adjust, learn and retest their solutions,” said Janice Bryant, sustainment technology manager at Naval Systems Engineering and Logistics Directorate Technology Office and the sponsor of REPTX.  

REPTX is part of the broader Advanced Naval Technology Exercise-Coastal Trident 2022, which began in June and runs to September, and which NSWC PHD organizes and aims to bolster port and maritime security through field experiments involving emerging technologies and training events with law enforcement and other first responders.  

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