In a conventional ship, the engines are continuously being throttled up and down to propel the vessel at different speeds.

This sort of arrangement will offer far more flexibility for naval architects because the power source can be placed anywhere on the ship, instead of directly in line with the propellers. The generator will, in turn, provide electricity for the motors that turn the propellers. Instead, the power source, such as a diesel or gas turbine engine, will drive a large electrical generator. The future warships will differ fundamentally from conventional vessels in that they will run on electric motors, and their power sources will not be connected directly to the propellers. 'One goal is to build a ship that does not need any maintenance while at sea,' says Scott Sudhoff, an associate professor at Purdue University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. A feature of the new vessels will be a system that automatically reroutes power around sections of a ship that are damaged in war, enabling the continued functioning of weapons, navigation and communication equipment. Research on the power systems for the new vessels will be conducted by the Energy Systems Analysis Consortium, led by engineers at Purdue and the University of Missouri-Rolla. A new generation of automated warships for the US Navy will run on electrical power and need only half the naval crew.

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