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Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) has two major challenges. Detect without endangering the ship and its crew. Allows for continuous tracking of submarines. Today’s track and trace initially involves triangulating information received from ship’s sonar, as well as from sonobuoys and dive sonar launched and operated by Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) and ASW helicopters.
“Thales is currently looking to develop technology to integrate unmanned systems into ASW operations.” “Currently, the technology for launching and operating underwater sonar from helicopters is too heavy for him to attach to UAVs, so Thales developed a small diameter cable.”
The thin cable is “less than 3 mm thick” and the length is “approximately 700 m”, which is an overwhelming length. Made of plastic and strong enough to support the weight of a diving sonar, it also transmits information from the sonar to the UAV. Once the UAV receives the information, it forwards it to all other platforms (MPA, helicopter, ship).
Using this cable for tracking via UAV gives you more flexibility and speed. If the submarine moves, the UAV can pull the underwater sonar out of the water by simply unwinding the cable. This process is much less cumbersome than rewinding the sonar helicopter – move to the next location and deploy again.
Thales keeps this promising technology very secretive. No photos were allowed while the small cable was on display at his Euronaval stand. Thales declined to reveal how the data will travel over the cable, but using fiber is the most likely option.
UAVs and submersible sonars can function “at the customer’s request”, fully autonomously or away from the mothership. However, Thales has not currently announced the readiness level of any potential interested customers or technology.