Pioneer, an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) which has conducted trials as part of the Royal Navy’s Atlantic Bastion programme, has recently completed a five-day autonomous demonstration.
The 14-metre catamaran drone built by ACUA Ocean operated continuously at sea for more than 100 hours without intervention, hosting two separate sets of sensors.
As per a company statement, the USV — which features a Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) design for optimal stability — was carrying a direction-finding capability, CommsAudit’s SPECTRA Super Resolution Direction Finding (SRDF) system.
It said the data provided by the SPECTRA system during the five-day demo was also supplemented by Leonardo’s land-based Guardian Vantage Electronic Warfare system.
While deployed, the USV was also fitted out with other sensing equipment in the shape of a Multi-Beam Echo Sounder (MBES) for hydrographic surveys.
ACUA Ocean said both sensing systems had been integrated onto its USV platform in just two days ahead of the 100-hour demonstration, which was conducted off the south coast of England towards the end of June.
Over the last 12 months the USV has completed three contracts commissioned under the RN’s Atlantic Net Technology Demonstrator Programme.
Atlantic Net is the first phase of the Royal Navy’s broader Atlantic Bastion anti-submarine warfare (ASW) initiative, focusing on developing a persistent, uncrewed sensing network via a Contractor-Owned, Contractor-Operated, Naval Oversight (COCONO) model.
After this “sensing as a service” phase, the plan is to deploy these capabilities under a more mature Government-Owned, Government-Operated (GOGO) framework in the Atlantic Bastion stage as part of the wider RN transition to a Hybrid Navy model.
- You can read more details on about the Pioneer USV on the ACUA Ocean website