Unmanned naval vehicle development: A growing trend

Unmanned naval vehicle development: A growing trend

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By iHLS NewsDesk

A few countries, including Israel, are focusing more and more on the development of autonomous, unmanned surface and underwater vehicles – meant for use in military and security forces, but also meant for civilian uses such as oceanographic research.

Rafael Protector USV. Phoyo: Rafael
Rafael Protector USV. Photo: Rafael

The IDF began using UAVs in the 1970s, but USVs – naval robots – are still in their infancy. The Navy uses the Rafael Protector USV for various missions, and there are ongoing R&D activities for the development of new technologies in this field.

USVs and unmanned underwater vehicles have a few advantages:

  • An operational advantage – the vehicles can reach great depths
  • Fighter safety, getting close to enemy beaches
  • Mission times – continuous control of areas, high endurance, effective patrols
  • Stealth, getting within close range to the various threats

Experts in the field say that although USVs were used during the second Iraq war, the unmanned surface and underwater vehicle field is still considered new, and most existing unmanned platforms are still limited – they have limited capacities, they can’t carry heavy payloads, and they are sensitive to conditions at sea. The ultimate USV will have the following traits: It will be a reliable and robust platform; a multi-mission patrol vehicle; tracking, launching and firepower capacities; modular mission-specific payloads; a wide range of connectivity capacities; and a simple control scheme.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

The U.S. is developing USVs and unmanned underwater vehicles for intelligence gathering, search and rescue and HLS. In the first stage nuclear submarines will carry autonomous vessels and launch them; in the second stage they will be launched from navy vessels, complete their missions and return to their base ship.

At the end of October the Tel Aviv University will host the AUVSI 2013 convention, focusing on naval robotics. AUVSI brings together the naval robotics community in Israel, and will present new developments and trends from Israel and abroad. Recently there have been many new investments in the field: a national center for Mediterranean research and a center for naval robotics were established at the Technion. The keynote address at the convention will be given by Brig. Gen. Moshe Zana, head of the Israeli Navy’s equipment division. Decision makers from the Ministry of Defense’s R&D division (Maf’at) will participate in the event, and lectures will be given by researchers from all the Israeli universities and the University of California.

Britain is focusing on underwater communications, energy-saving technologies for autonomous vehicles, enhancing underwater endurance, stealthy movement and the development of intelligence-gathering payloads. NATO is interested in using USVs for mine detection.

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