Undersea Technology: Unmanned, underwater and under consideration | ADM Aug 2010

Several medium and longer-term ADF requirements are focusing the attention of both Defence and industry on uninhabited undersea vehicles (UUV), the potential of which seems likely to be fully realised initially in mine countermeasures (MCM) and hydrographic survey roles.

Julian Kerr | Sydney

However, there is general recognition that the future capabilities of UUVs extend well beyond those domains.

The US Navy 2004 UUV Master Plan named eight mission categories for UUVs in addition to MCM – intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; anti-submarine warfare; inspection and identification; oceanography; communication and navigation networking; payload delivery; information operations; and time-critical strike.

The USN plan is due to be updated later this year.

In addition to refining requirements, it is expected to feature a greater concentration on large UUVs and the payload and endurance advantages that they offer.

In Australia, a series of projects – JP 1770, Sea 1778, Sea 1180 and Sea 1000 – is establishing an evolutionary range of objectives for UUVs and here, too, interest appears to be moving towards larger platforms.

Serious domestic research on UUVs got underway in 1996 when the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) began development of its Wayamba testbed after being asked to advise the ADF’s mine warfare community on remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technologies and tactics.

Initially designed as a tethered ROV, Wayamba’s configuration has been progressively enhanced to allow the platform to operate autonomously as a UUV – although it has yet to do so.

Reflecting the push for larger payloads, DSTO has completed a prototype 21-inch diameter testbed named Murula (aboriginal for spearthrower) capable of being launched from a standard submarine torpedo tube and with the ability to subsequently launch secondary payloads.

“Prior to the (2009) Defence White Paper we decided to position ourselves towards the possibility of deploying unmanned system payloads out of submarines, and this anticipated what was actually in the White Paper,” Dr Roger Neill, Head Unmanned Maritime Systems at DSTO, told ADM.

It is worth noting that the White Paper stated that Australia’s Future Submarine would have the ability to deploy a range of unmanned and offboard systems.

“We’re now working our way through the sub-safe requirements to eventually launch Murula out of a Collins class.

“We’re by no means at that point yet, but we’ve been using Wayamba to simulate at least some of the interface issues that arise: safe arming procedures and the like,” he said.

Although Murula has been designed to accommodate vehicles such as the 37-kilogram Remus 100 small UUV purchased by DSTO in 2007, its first experimental payload – while hung beneath Wayamba which was in turn suspended in the water from a gantry – was a 1.8-metre-long, 52-kilogram Webb glider vehicle.

This uses small changes in its buoyancy in conjunction with wings to convert vertical motion to horizontal, thereby propelling itself forward over impressive distances with very low power consumption.

Its Iridium communications capability enables it to transmit data to a central location when it comes to the surface and, if necessary, to be retasked.

Meanwhile Wayamba itself is being fitted with a commercially derived lithium ion battery system that will enable the vehicle to be operated in a fully autonomous mode.

“Up until now we’ve been running power down a tether which I say unashamedly has many benefits, and allows us to get the datafeed back full bandwidth and in real time,” Dr Neill commented.

“When we get Wayamba back in the water later this year we’ll be deploying Murula from it in a non-captive mode and then hopefully over the next year or two we’ll move towards doing a submarine-based deployment.

“We do things step by step, we don’t run before we can crawl.”

In 2004 DSTO initiated an Automation of the Battlespace Initiative, which was used to build its understanding of uninhabited systems and their potential to deliver real operational benefits to the warfighter.

Under that program, the first major step in assessing the capabilities of UUVs in ADF littoral mine warfare operations took place in Port Phillip Bay in late 2005 as part of Exercise Dugong, when Wayamba, controlled via a Sonartech Atlas Integrated Survey Sensor System (ISSS), was used to survey potential landing sites, then successfully hunted for mine-like targets.

The ISSS is a mission-planning and display facility.

Incorporating data and sensor inputs from a range of sources, it was used to set mission coordinates and view in real time the path and attitude taken by the UUV.

The exercise included two Aerosonde unmanned aerial vehicles, one for aerial surveillance and the other acting as a mobile communications relay station.

RF signals from the command vessel were relayed via the UAV to a communications buoy which in turn relayed them underwater to Wayamba utilising the Nautronix/DSTO Networked Sonic Gateway (NetSong) system.

Three years later, the mine detection capabilities of Saab’s AUV62 UUV, the Atlas Elektronik SeaOtter MkI, and the US-developed Bluefin were assessed in a RPDE expeditionary mine countermeasures demonstration in Jervis Bay.

This provided valuable data towards the derisking of JP 1770 (Rapid Environmental Assessment) and Sea 1778 (Deployable Mine Counter Measures).

RPDE Task 31, currently underway, takes a further step forward by aiming to provide a clearer understanding of how best to deploy UUVs as part of deployable MCM capability.

In undertaking its UUV research, DSTO has to some extent separated what it sees as COTS-based work on JP 1770, Sea 1778 and Sea 1180 (Patrol Boat, Mine Hunter Coastal and Hydrographic Ship Replacement) from the areas of potential research with higher risk but higher payoff.

“Future undersea warfare is one of 12 corporate enabling research programs that have been set up by the Chief Defence Scientist as part of his future-proofing policies,” Dr Neill said.

“We’re trying to run this program as a parallel but connected activity with Sea 1000.

“The idea is we do some of the derisking, identify some of the capabilities that could potentially transform into a future submarine and then transition them into the Sea 1000 program.

“Things like payload, payload delivery, release (we’re not looking at recoveries specifically), communications, and mission control, they’re all the sort of areas we need to look at, and the technology we’ve got in the Wayamba vehicle really lends itself to that research.”

DSTO has also purchased a GAVIA man-portable UUV, manufactured by the Icelandic company Hafmynd, whose modularity, Dr Neill said, lends itself towards scientific research.

Late last year a joint initiative by the manufacturer and Woodside Energy saw a GAVIA vehicle successfully trialled off Perth at a depth of 1,000 metres.

In 2006 the RAN borrowed a REMUS 600 medium UUV from the US Office of Naval Research, and the following year purchased its own system to assist in developing a concept for the deployment of such systems.

Based on the same technology as the REMUS 100, the REMUS 600 is designed to operate at depths of up to 600 metres and has an endurance of more than 70 hours.

However, its 240-kilogram weight has created difficulties in meeting the current requirements of JP 1770 and Sea 1778, which involve the capability to be deployable from and recovered by a RHIB.

Recently, Thales designed an over the stern rail and winch launch and recovery system (LARS) for use on a RHIB, although the inclusion of proposals for UUV launch and recovery systems in the May round of DSTO’s Capability and Technology Demonstrator program indicates further development is required.

According to Peter Cantwell, Strategic Development Manager C4 Systems at BAE Systems Australia, the focus of JP 1770 and Sea 1778 is on small and medium UUVs, which would still include the REMUS 600.

“I think at this stage they’ve realised that employment of the larger UUVs means some challenges that they may not be able to address until Sea 1180, and that’s when I’d expect the larger UUVs to come into their own,” Cantwell commented.

“With Sea 1770 and Sea 1778, the issue is to get UUVs into the area of operations ahead of the task group in a timely manner and bring them back again quite quickly, and that’s why they’re looking at RHIB deployment.

“There’s a whole bunch of issues they’ve identified under that broad banner of UUV employment launch and recovery, autonomy and obstacle avoidance, computer-aided detection and classification, and communications.”

Beyond the platform and employment issues, Cantwell sees the harmonisation of individual capabilities as a major challenge.

“When Sea 1778 first published their options set, interoperability was simply defined as an element of interface to the mine warfare command support system (MINTACS),” he said.

“But it will need to go a lot further than that to understand how these individual capabilities can be employed collectively, how they’re sharing data to optimise mission efficiency and effectiveness, and how they’re ultimately feeding information into the command decision-making process.”

Rather than duplicate Commonwealth activities, BAE Systems Australia is therefore working towards the establishment of a mission system integration laboratory at its North Ryde facility which will also have interfaces to other capabilities.

Integration exercises are expected to start later this year, utilising the mission management system and ground control station of the BAE Systems’ Talisman M large UUV.

Weighing in at 1,800 kilograms, Talisman M is not a contender for any current ADF requirement.

However, BAE Systems last year launched the two-man deployable, 50-kilogram Talisman L (for Littoral), which utilises the same systems architecture and many of the same components and is likely to provide international competition for the REMUS 100.

For Jim Manson, Business Development Manager at Saab Technologies Australia, capability and vehicle size are closely linked.

“You can’t put large sidescan or synthetic aperture sonars on a small body; this is where aspiration and reality take leave of each other,” he said.

“The RAN is good at operating its mine warfare force from a deployed beachhead but without really investing in the UUV technology, the big-end stuff, having a single small UUV force trying to move ahead of something like an LHD, when the LHD has to be fairly close to the UUV centre of operations, is just fraught with disaster.

“What the Americans have learnt is that if you want to replace the Huon-type minehunter with an organic capability it’s going to be extremely expensive.”

Manson’s emphasis on size was echoed by Michael Clark, Director Research and Technology at Thales Australia, who told ADM a number of companies had pointed out to Defence the severe limitations that would be imposed on UUV sensors by the original weight limitation for Sea 1778 of less than 250 kilograms.

Such a limitation would preclude the use of synthetic aperture sonar, which was essential to achieving computer-aided detection and computer-aided classifications, which were prerequisites for achieving autonomy, he said.

It’s now understood, although not officially confirmed, that Defence has amended its weight restriction for Sea 1778 to a medium-sized UUV, defined as a vehicle between 250 and 500 kilograms.

This could adversely affect the competitiveness of smaller vehicles, including the 40-kilogram Atlas Elektronik SeaFox system.

This provides the option of either the expendable SeaFox C hard kill unit, used by the Royal Navy in the Gulf, or the SeaFox 1 reusable identification variant.

While there are a number of launching options that have been implemented by Atlas and the European SeaFox users, Atlas Elektronik’s Australian subsidiary Sonartech Atlas told ADM it was currently working with Australian companies to optimise an effective automated launching solution for SeaFox that would meet the requirements and concept of operation of Sea 1778, and could also feed into JP 1770.

Whatever system is eventually selected for JP 1770 and Sea 1778, the experience gained during these two programs will be used to inform Sea 1180, as will that of allies.

Although first pass approval is not anticipated for another two to four years, an Invitation to Register was issued on 28 June and the Project Office is known to be having substantial engagement with overseas services including the Royal Navy, which is considering a multirole minehunting platform similar to the proposed Australian offshore combat vessel.

All three participants in the 2007 Jervis Bay trial are expected to be contenders for the MCM element of Sea 1180.