Maritime unmanned vehicles provide strategic and operational advantages to navies and security forces by significantly reducing the cost and human risk of mine countermeasures, as well as by extending the reach of surveillance.These systems, which can be launched off naval platforms, offer significant protection against major threats including naval mines, piracy and anti-submarine warfare. Several vehicle types fall into the category of maritime unmanned vehicles:
- Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs)
- Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) which can make decisions based on the situation they encounter to achieve their pre-programmed missions.
- Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs)
Among other purposes, UUV/AUV and USV are used in mine countermeasures (MCM) and in the protection of harbours as well as in anti-submarine warfare (ASW).
Mine Counter Measures (MCM) highlights
Thales specialises in developing maritime unmanned systems for use in anti-mine warfare, to detect, locate, classify, identify and eventually neutralise mines. As an anti-mine warfare solutions provider, Thales is a world leader in the supply of conventional solutions based on hull mounted and towed sonars for MCM vessels. The company is now developing capacities to integrate crucial unmanned elements, as organic assets, into new and future solutions for mine warfare.
ASEMAR
Thales was selected in 2007 to lead the development work of a sonar system, as part of the ASEMAR study for the design of a surveillance-based AUV for maritime security operations. This project, signed with the Maritime Cluster initiative in the French region of Brittany, involves two industrial partners (Thales and ECA) and four educational institutions in France. It is part of a series of experiments undertaken in conjunction with the NATO Undersea Research Center (NURC) and the DUBM-44 programme for developing high-level AUV payloads.
Thales is responsible for developing the sonar system, as well as the autonomous decision-making capability and the high-resolution synthetic aperture side-scan sonar offering. These capabilities provide the AUV with an unrivalled performance for detecting and identifying underwater objects at relatively high speed, which provides a high coverage rate. The cutting-edge sonar system features state-of-the-art imaging and mission autonomy technologies.
The VAMA (Véhicule Anti-Mines Autonome) study
Autonomous Unmanned Vehicle demonstrators
Thales is supporting the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) in preparing technological and algorithmic building blocks for naval mine countermeasures of the future, particularly in the domain of AUVs. Since 2007, the company has been involved in autonomous mine hunting programmes such as the VAMA autonomous anti-mine vehicle prototype developed with Norway, and the Autonomous
Unmanned Vehicle Upstream study demonstrator.
These projects aim to validate the concept of deploying unmanned vehicles for MCM operations and to improve the operational control of such systems with onboard real time processing capabilities.
ESPADON
(Evaluation de Solutions Potentielles d’Automatisation de Déminage pour les Opérations Navales) ESPADON is an advanced study programme funded by the French defence procurement agency (DGA) with the aim of minimising risks surrounding certain aspects of the maritime drone-based future anti-mine warfare system.
Thales and DCNS were awarded this major study contract in 2009 for a demonstrator of a new MCM solution. This partnership is the first in the world to evaluate USVs deploying AUVs for full-scale MCM.
DCNS, Thales and ECA have put forward a joint solution using USVs in preparation for the expected renewal of MCM systems among many Navies in the coming decades. These vehicles offer the key benefit of keeping crews out of harm’s way. MCM operations have typically been performed by
dedicated vessels, known as minehunters, and have exposed crews to considerable danger.
The ESPADON solution comprises a dedicated vessel, two USVs and AUVs. The dedicated vessel remains at a safe distance from the minefield and controls the USVs, which are programmed specifically to operate in minefields. The USVs in turn deploy AUVs. As part of ESPADON, Thales leads the USV, MCM outfitting and sensor module, as well as communications between the different components.