Next Stage of Maritime Unmanned Vehicles Program

Next Stage of Maritime Unmanned Vehicles Program

unmanned vehicles

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

A UK program achieves progress in the use of unmanned vehicles and autonomous systems in the maritime arena. The Maritime Autonomous Platform Exploitation (MAPLE) project led by the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) seeks to demonstrate and de-risk the integration of multiple unmanned systems into the combat system of a Royal Navy warship.

The project is carried out by Qinetiq in partnership with BAE Systems, SeeByte and Thales. It was recently announced that Qinetiq will lead phase four of the project under a £4.5 million contract

Under phase three of the MAPLE project, Qinetiq and its partners developed and built a technology demonstrator called Autonomous Control Exploitation Realisation (ACER), a deployable prototype which is based on Dstl’s Open Architecture Combat System. ACER provides the means by which the result of MAPLE work can be effectively demonstrated in a variety of situations.

According to shephardmedia.com, phase four of the project will continue to evolve this design, validate its architecture and extend it to include communications. Advances in capability will also be demonstrated through a series of synthetic experiments followed by live exercises.

The project will build on the success of Unmanned Warrior 2016, which saw the successful integration of data sourced from 25 unmanned air, surface and underwater vehicles from 12 organizations through ACER.

Stuart Hider, director, maritime programs, Qinetiq said: ‘Through effective collaboration, we are building on the ACER system’s success at Unmanned Warrior.’

The major players at the ground, maritime and aerial unmanned systems market will soon showcase their best technological and operational innovations at the leading conference on Autonomous Unmanned Systems and Robotics – AUS&R 2017.

The event, organized by iHLS, will take place on September 18th, 2017 at the Lago Conference Center in Rishon LeZion.

For more details

Booth/sponsorship: Keren Kalderon  kerenk@i-HLS.com   +972-52-3653165