MILAN — Thales Australia has partnered with Saildrone to integrate a towed array sonar system with the Surveyor unmanned surface vessel, promising navies the ability to pinpoint underwater threats through silent operation.
The companies’ tie-up follows sea trials, funded by the United States Office of Naval Research, during which Saildrone’s Surveyor USV, equipped with Thales’ BlueSentry sensor package, operated almost uninterrupted for 26 days.
Conducted off the coast of California, the tests demonstrated that the systems detected and classified underwater and surface threats, with an uptime averaging more than 96%, according to Saildrone.
In the context of underwater drones, the notion of “uptime” generally refers to the percentage of time the system is available and able to perform its intended missions continuously.
“The trials showed that, under wind propulsion, the Surveyor provided a near-zero self-noise environment, significantly improving the detection capabilities of the BlueSentry sonar system,” a Saildrone press release stated.
A fleet of USVs, integrated with these sonar arrays, is intended to be able to operate for extended periods of time, autonomously patrolling large ocean areas and reduce the costs of coverage, per the Thales website.
The companies said that the team-up could pave the way for greater “naval interoperability” between the trilateral AUKUS partners – Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States – and deliver on the security partnership’s technology-focused Pillar 2 scope. That line of work is intended to harness the joint industrial and innovation bases of the three countries to ensure that their respective militaries are equipped with advanced and interoperable capabilities.
While during the trials the systems relied on Starlink and Iridium satellite communications, Saildrone recently announced a GPS-denied option not reliant on satellites.
Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. She covers a wide range of topics related to military procurement and international security, and specializes in reporting on the aviation sector. She is based in Milan, Italy.
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