The Royal Navy has rolled out crewless minesweeping equipment to hunt and destroy mines for the first time.
New systems, known collectively as SWEEP, have been accepted into service to combat the threat of naval mines. An uncrewed surface vessel and sophisticated payloads make up the SWEEP system, which is controlled remotely on the surface to hunt and detonate mines quickly.
SWEEP was developed and manufactured in the UK by Dorset-based TKMS Atlas UK (formerly Atlas Elektronik UK), as part of a £25 million contract.
According to the navy, SWEEP’s “sense and avoid” capability works together with other similar autonomous systems, such as the maritime mine countermeasures (MMCM) system and SeaCat uncrewed underwater vehicles, for the common goals of sustaining freedom of maneuver for Royal Navy vessels and making international waters safer.
“The return of the ability to remotely counter sophisticated mines that are more difficult to detect by sonar, is a crucial milestone for the Royal Navy’s Mine Countermeasures capability,” said Commander Dan Herridge , Commanding Officer of the Royal Navy’s Mine & Threat Exploitation Group.
“The acceptance of SWEEP is an exciting milestone ahead of the Royal Navy conducting training, operational evaluation, and assurance of the systems prior to deployment.”
“The uncrewed system can replicate a ship’s signature, tricking sea mines into detonating safely. The portable, flexible system is vital to protecting ships from modern mine threats, operated remotely from land or sea, it will keep our sailors out of danger and will restore a minesweeping capability the Royal Navy has lacked since 2005,” Jonathan Reed-Beviere , Mine Hunting Capability Programme Director for the Royal Navy, added.
“These three SWEEP systems will help to ensure Royal Navy personnel can combat the evolving global threat of naval mines more effectively and more safely. The new technology, which will also help maintain the freedom of manoeuvre for UK ships and submarines when defending the UK at sea, is aligned with the aims of the Strategic Defence Review to increase utilisation of new autonomous equipment to support the Royal Navy to patrol the North Atlantic and beyond,” Andy Lapsley , Mine Hunting Capability Team Leader at DE&S, commented.
“We have worked with the MOD for decades to develop our minesweeping expertise and deliver this capability as a true, UK innovation, supporting highly skilled local jobs and the manufacturing base. We look forward to continuing to work with the RN and MHC team for the success of the transition to an autonomous MCM capability for the UK,” Antoni Mazur , Managing Director of TKMS Atlas UK, noted.
To remind, in December last year, the Royal Navy tested an autonomous boat in Scotland. he trial was conducted in the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, and the vessel Apollo, a small uncrewed boat equipped with a mine-hunting kit, was launched from SD Northern River, a Defence Marine Services’ ship. The goal was to prove that the boat could be used from a commercial vessel, which could be an option in some operational scenarios.