ATLAS ELEKTRONIK SUCCESSFULLY DEMONSTRATES A FULLY UNMANNED MCM DETECT TO ENGAGE MISSION
On Sunday 11th June the ATLAS ELEKTRONIK UK (AEUK) ARCIMS Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) departed the Belgian Naval base fitted with a towed AQS-24B minehunting sonar from Nothrop Grumman and the SeaFox mine disposal system from ATLAS ELEKTRONIK. ARCIMS transit to the tactical training area was independent of any support from the CPV for the 36km passage. Once in the operational area a six hour “Detect to Engage” mission was carried out using both remote control and autonomous operations. This included 12 km² of continuous mine hunting survey at 14 knots with two laser identification runs and a SeaFox engagement against a mine contact that had been detected and classified by the towed sonar. ATLAS ELEKTRONIK’s new station keeping autonomy behaviour was utilised to position the ARCIMS for accurate and stable launch and delivery of SeaFox mine disposal mission.
Mark Bezzant, AEUK Trials Manager stated ”The BE NSU demonstration offered a fantastic opportunity to conduct a complete unmanned end to end mission using multiple MCM toolbox components from a single USV.”
Throughout the realistic tactical scenario the ARCIMS Detect to Engage mission package received C2 from the MCM Commander based on BNS Pollux, which maintained a mobile stand-off distance and utilised a radio communications system that was fitted to the CPV and tested in just 1 hour.
John Sutcliffe, AEUK Director Business Development said “The combined system delivered and demonstrated to the Belgian Trials has presented ATLAS ELEKTRONIK Group as a world leading provider of offboard and unmanned mission systems. Future deployment of our ARCIMS mission system and MCM toolbox will allow the manned C2 platform to remain outside of the minefield, increase the speed of mine detection and engage mine threats remotely thereby reducing the risk to military personnel.”
The AEUK ARCIMS USV once again proved its versatility and adaptability matching the CPV speed in transit, towing a minehunting sonar at 14 knots and station holding in SS2/3 and 22 knots of wind.
The ATLAS ELEKTRONIK well known SeaFox was used in a remote controlled engagement whereby the launch from the ARCIMS platform and the successive guidance to the target was completely controlled from the Pollux via a RF connection.
With these trials ATLAS ELEKTRONIK Group showed to have the components in required to conduct a Detect to Engage mission without a man in the minefield.