The Royal Navy’s silent service has challenged a team of young scientists to re-envision what the future of underwater warfare would look like and the results of their work have now been revealed. Flying fish swarm drones, completely autonomous eel-shaped UUVs and dissolving micro UUVs are all part
UK’s Maritime Autonomous Platform Exploitation (MAPLE) project is entering phase four after defense contractor Qinetiq signed a £4.5m contract to lead this phase of development. The project is being developed for the defense ministry’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and focuses on
UK-based defense contractor BAE Systems announced it has been awarded £457,000 to design and deliver the UK’s first dedicated autonomous systems testing service. The grants were awarded by the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), a locally-owned partnership between businesses and authorities.
Dynamic Mongoose 2017, a NATO-led submarine surveillance exercise, began on Tuesday off the coast of Iceland. Ships, submarines, aircraft and personnel from 10 allied nations gathered in the North Atlantic Ocean for anti-submarine and anti-surface training. Submarines from France, Germany, the Nethe
Starting autonomous flight trials of its VSR700 Optionally Piloted Vehicle (OPV) demonstrator, Airbus Helicopters has come a step closer to the first flight of the actual VSR700 prototype in 2018. A light military rotary-wing tactical unmanned aerial vehicle, the VSR700 is being developed jointly by
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) company UMS Skeldar has joined forces with Sentient Vision Systems to equip its SKELDAR V-200 VTOL UAV with a ViDAR (visual identification detection and ranging) system for its unmanned systems. The ViDAR payload on the SKELDAR V-200 will be deploying five to ten camera
The Kazakhstan Navy commissioned its first mine sweeping ship ‘Alatau’ during a ceremony held June 1 in Aktau, a city on the east bank of the Caspian Sea. The ship was built in Russia by the Mid-Nevsky Shipyard and started sea trials in August 2016, passing acceptance trials in May this year. One in
French unmanned systems manufacturer ECA Group announced that the unmanned mine counter measure integrated system (UMIS) it delivered to Kazakh Navy passed sea acceptance trials. The system was delivered and installed onboard the Kazakh Navy 10750E-class mine countermeasure vessel. Built by the Russ
All members of the NATO alliance have, for the first time ever, adopted a recently-developed standard for underwater acoustic communications. The standard is called Janus and was developed by NATO Science and Technology Organization’s Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE). “This ma
The Royal Norwegian Navy is getting a mine countermeasure capability boost with a new set of autonomous underwater vehicles. Contracted by the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency (NDMA), Kongsberg Maritime is to deliver four complete Hugin AUV systems for detection, classification and identification o
The keel for the Irish Navy’s fourth Samuel Beckett-class offshore patrol vessel was laid in Babcock’s Appledore shipyard on February 28. Named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, the vessel will have pennant number P64. It is being built under a contract signed between the Irish ministry of
Atlas Elektronik UK (AEUK) announced it was awarded another export contract for the delivery of its ARCIMS vehicles to an unspecified customer. Both ARCIMS vehicles that are to be delivered will be operating an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) surveillance mission module that can detect, classify and lo
To battle submarines in the Baltic Sea, you need to have a torpedo developed specifically for the Baltic Sea, Swedish torpedo developers have said. In a recent article posted on the Defence Materiel Administration website, Sweden’s torpedo developers explain what a process to develop and produce a n
UK’s BMT Defence Services (BMT) joined forces with the University of Bristol to work on the development of an UAV that would be the first ever to perform a perched landing on a ship’s flight deck. The 18-month research project was delivered as part of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s
