Australian navy s unmanned MCM development picks up pace
22 January 2021
by Kelvin Wong
The Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN’s) efforts to operationalise a rapidly deployable mine-countermeasures (MCM) capability using robotic and autonomous systems under Project SEA 1778 is picking up pace with acceptance testing of key systems under way, an Australian Department of Defence (DoD) spokesperson told
Janes
on 20 January.
“Thales Australia, the prime systems integrator, [is] in the early stages of acceptance testing of the first of these systems,” the spokesperson said, noting that the current deployable MCM suite comprises the Atlas Elektronik Seafox expendable mine neutralisation system, General Dynamics Mission Systems’ (GDMS’s) Bluefin 9 and 12 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and the MAS Zengrange remote detonation system.