Unmanned mine countermeasures system to utilize Big Data and AI
NewsNovember 30, 2020
FRANCE, UNITED KINGDOM. Thales has won a joint contract to start the production phase of the Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) to deliver eight unmanned mine hunting systems to France and the U.K..
The subsystems developed for the program by Thales and its partners include unmanned surface vehicles (USV) to transport and connect solutions and a sonar (SAMDIS) offering unique Single Path Multi View capability to identify and classify threats.
According to the company, the SAMDIS sonar can be carried by autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) or by towed synthetic aperture multiviews (TSAM) vehicles operated from the USV. The USV can also carry a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to neutralize the threats. The entire system is remotely supervised by operators working from a portable operational center (POC) capable of controlling up to three systems in parallel at sea.
The company also claims that the MMCM is the only proven system to offer advanced technologies, including autonomy, to improve performance and productivity due to the combination of real-time user experience using big data exchanges with trusted augmented artificial intelligence (A2I) to provide improvement of end-user trust in operation clearance and increase the security of national interests.
