Hydrography Catalogue: ECA Group demonstrates MCM collaborative drones operation during MCM Trials 2

Tuesday, June 27 2017

ECA Group demonstrates its unmanned multi-simultaneous MCM drone operation during MCM Trials 2017 in Belgium.

Published on Hydrographic Catalogue, June 2017.

ECA Group demonstrated its capability to deploy simultaneously its AUVs, USV and ROVs to perform an MCM operation, during the Belgian Navy evaluation of Unmanned Maritime Systems 2017.

The recent evolution of drone technology enable unmanned systems to collaborate, to be increasingly autonomous and have enhanced operability distance. MCM operations, unlike the legacy system since the 1970's, are now about using multi-type unmanned platform swarms to reduce the time of MCM operation and ensuring safety of crews.

In the harsh subsea conditions, ECA Group operated from the Coastal Patrol Vessel (CPV Pollux) of the Belgian Navy, its Unmanned MCM Integrated System (UMIS) dedicated to underwater mine warfare composed of an AUV A9-M and an INSPECTOR Unmanned Surface vehicle itself deploying two SEASCAN MK2 ROVs.

Meanwhile, the long range A27-M, has also been operated from the same CPV with the support of ECA Group personnel.

This complete set of vehicles were operated within an evaluation area for a predefined MCM mission. Through its radio and acoustic communication links, ECA Group systems were able to operate in parallel, with real-time cooperative actions, whilst maintaining operators aboard the CPV in a safe zone several kilometers away from the minefield. After only a few minutes the first contact snapshots automatically generated by the Automatic Target Detection software embarked in the AUV A9-M relayed by the USV were received and the classification process could immediately start whilst the AUV continued its survey mission following a subsea preprogrammed pattern.

The INSPECTOR Unmanned Surface vehicle was immediately sent to the location of the shortlisted classified contacts to deploy the SEASCAN inspection vehicle. This ROV was remotely operated using the subsea optical fiber from the USV and the latter’s radio link to the operator aboard the CPV in order to carry out the final visual camera identification.

All the collected data from this operation is to be examined by the Belgian Navy in order to evaluate the performances of the ECA Group unmanned MCM integrated system.

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