Navantia inks deal with SH Defence to explore development of 'The Cube'

Spanish company Navantia has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Danish equipment provider SH Defence to explore the development of the SH Defence ‘The Cube’ system in future designs, such as new SMART Ships line, and in retrofit options for existing ships.

The signing took place on Wednesday at Navantia Headquarters in Madrid between Donato Martínez, CTO of Navantia, and Rene Bertelsen, CEO of SH Defence.

The Cube, with a wide catalogue of up to 350 different modules, aligns with Navantia’s own research on ship’s modularity.

The system is a plug-and-play mission module for air, surface and subsea domains. It runs from a Cube Ready platform (vessel). It has the infrastructure to handle and move mission modules on deck, inside the hangar or replace existing modules in the mission bay.

All modules use the footprint of shipping containers and are loaded into the side of platforms with mission bays.

These innovative developments will allow Navantia’s ships to be reconfigured depending on the missions and adapted to the potential future needs without the necessity of realize complex modifications to the platforms, according to the company.

To remind, last month, Navantia signed an MoU with Saudi Ministry of Defense and General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) to build a number of multi-mission combat ships for the Royal Saudi Naval Force.