Revolution at Sea: UK Engineers Unveil Groundbreaking Autonomous Submarine for Defense
A group of British engineers situated in Portsmouth has effectively showcased a novel kind of autonomous submarine, crafted specifically for defense purposes, along the southern coast of England.
The craft, named Herne, is classified as an extra large autonomous underwater vehicle (XLAUV) and has been tailored by BAE Systems to empower military forces to observe and safeguard underwater assets across extensive seabed areas, assist in anti-submarine tactics, and offer an alternative method for conducting covert surveillance operations.
The tests conducted earlier this month witnessed the vessel executing a pre-arranged intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assignment, powered by Nautomate, the firm’s platform-independent high-specification military control system. This follows successful evaluations of the technology aboard a surface craft earlier this year.
Scott Jamieson, Managing Director of BAE Systems’ Maritime Services division, remarked: “Herne represents a transformative breakthrough in the underwater combat domain. It will provide our clients with a cost-efficient autonomous capability that facilitates a diverse range of missions, diminishes reliance on crewed platforms, ensuring personnel remain safe and enhancing endurance.”
Capable of being installed on both existing or newly built vessels, Nautomate offers a cost-effective solution to enhance autonomous capabilities, permitting operations with greater scale, endurance, and persistence while eliminating the necessity for human crews to function in challenging or hazardous environments. This allows skilled personnel to concentrate on tasks where human input is most valuable.
An additional advantage of underwater autonomy is that, devoid of the need for resupply or life support systems, Herne can patrol the subsurface domain significantly longer than a crewed counterpart.
It is also designed to be upgraded as new technologies or operational methodologies develop, utilizing open architecture mission plug-ins.
BAE Systems partnered with Canadian firm Cellula Robotics to deliver the demonstrative configuration of Herne XLAUV. This fruitful collaboration resulted in a “whiteboard to water” capability in just 11 months, showcasing the speed at which BAE Systems can deliver Herne and various other autonomous maritime solutions.
With the technology successfully demonstrated, the BAE Systems team will proceed to refine Herne with additional trials, tailored based on customer needs.
