According to Naval News, this year’s iteration of Autonomous Warrior focused heavily on leveraging crewed-uncrewed teaming in support of the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) mission. According to CDRE Kavanagh, Ocius Bluebottles, C2 Robotics Speartooths, and the vessels of USN Unmanned Surface Division One (USVDIV-1) were standout performers.
In one part of the exercise the Bluebottles, equipped with Thales Australia’s Blue Sentry thin-line towed array sonars, worked with USVDIV-1 vessels to track and isolate a Saab AUV62 submarine simulator. In collaboration with a C2 Robotics Sabertooth, they then cued RAN MH-60R Romeo helicopters which further prosecuted the contact. All-in-all, CDRE Kavanagh said, working together the systems were “super capable” in the ASW role.
Robert Dane said:
For me the most pleasing aspect was our ability to do this in all sorts of weather and conditions. As you can imagine the wargames involved lots of moving pieces and assets so scenarios were scheduled well in advance. At HMAS Creswell the conditions seemed mild but the Bluebottles were operating off Point Perpendicular, Bowen Island and Wreck Bay we had 2 weeks of classic South Coast conditions ranging from 25 knot North Easterly’s to 25-30+ knot Southerly’s (on one occasion we recorded 49.5 knots). Most of the time we also had 3m swells and all the time the East Australian current was running at 1-2 knots.
The Bluebottles’ ability to fold their sail down onto the deck to reduce windage to zero combined with the forward rudder flipper really showed their ‘super capable’ ability to hold station or navigate as directed by Navy in all conditions and while towing Thales arrays.
Further details can be found in this news article:
