US Navy to operate submarine periscope with Xbox controllers

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US Navy plans to use Xbox controllers in Virginia-class submarines. The craft crew probably won’t use them for a game of Naval Assault; the controllers are used to operate the periscopes.

The periscope in the submarines is normally operated with a joystick and a control panel from weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin, but this operation turned out to be quite heavy and inconvenient, requiring many hours of training before the crew can get to grips with it. In addition, this operating system costs $38,000.

The solution turns out to be an Xbox 360 controller. According to Lockheed Martin, with the Xbox controller, the crew was intuitively able to figure out how to operate the periscope within minutes. These controllers cost about thirty dollars.

This saving is appropriate for this type of submarine, which was designed as a low-cost alternative to the Seawolf-class submarines. Especially the computers and the network equipment are made from cheap parts that are already available, and so are not specially manufactured for this type of submarine.

The thirteen Virginia-class submarines completed so far do not have a traditional tube-shaped periscope that only one person can see through. The periscope on these submarines has high-resolution cameras that can rotate 360 ​​degrees. The images are shown on large screens in the control room, so that everyone can see them.

Virginia-class submarines are relatively modern attack submarines, which can be armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, mines, and torpedoes. The craft are powered by a nuclear power source.

A crew member tests the Xbox controller in a test room on the mainland. The photo is from the US Navy.

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