Submarine fighter and recon chief: What a naval mothership and its unmanned systems can do

SINGAPORE: The action starts away, about 100 km from the mothership. The enemy does not see the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strolling high in the sky, not to mention the mothership itself.

But the drone sees the enemy. Its high-zoom, high-definition cameras – powerful enough to see the features of your face – make it easy to identify the enemy: A hostile speedboat carrying gunmen.

The images are quickly transmitted to the mothership. Inside his command center, an operator drops another robotic weapon: an unmanned surface ship equipped with missiles slips to the side of the ship.

The USV charges ahead and hunt down the enemy. The speedboat does not approach – not within 10 km of the parent ship – when the USV locks and destroys it.

Based on a video presented at this year's International Conference and Exhibition on Maritime Defense (IMDEX) Asia in Singapore, here's how a battle scenario could unfold when a mothership works with a team of boats without crew and drones, allowing the marines to see each other earlier and hit faster.

Last June, Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen announced that the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) would replace its old missile corvettes with a multi-purpose combat vessel (MRCV), a type of mother ship carrying unmanned platforms for planes, surface planes and submarines. area.

"They will have … a modular package to extend their reach and flexibility in the face of threats," he repeated in March during the speech of the Supply Committee of the Ministry of Defense (MINDEF).

The first MRCVs will be delivered by 2025, with complete delivery expected by 2030.

The concept of mothership is not new. The US Special Operations Command has deployed a mother ship that can carry huge loads of military platforms, supplies and gear, while the British Royal Navy is developing multi-role ships capable of carrying out various operations, which support in case of crisis and war.

Thus, to find out what a mother ship can do, CNA spoke with defense companies at the IMDEX Asia Biennale, which brings together more than 230 companies from 29 countries. From May 14th to 16th, giants of the defense like the American Lockheed Martin, Israel Rafael and the Italian Leonardo.

The first stop was a glittering mega booth located near the entrance: Singapore's defense conglomerate, ST Engineering.

UNMANNED SURFACE SHIP

ST Engineering's Venus 16 can be associated with a mother ship. The RSN tested the Venus 16 as early as 2015, when it was used during a maritime drill to chase suspicious vessels.

MINDEF also revealed in March that the RSN was developing three types of SUVs to combat mines and conduct coastal patrols. In the latter role, the USVs will ultimately replace RSN's coastal mission vessels, which will allow them to be deployed further and more strategically for complex missions.

What makes the Venus 16 appropriate in a mother-boat system is its size and ability to play multiple roles, industry stakeholders said.

At 16 meters long, it's small enough to fit in a mothership, but big enough to carry a remote-controlled gun for force protection and extra payload depending on the mission. It also counts when navigating rough seas and carrying enough fuel to stay outside longer.

For mine clearance missions, a Venus 16 can be equipped with a sonar towed to detect mines, while another can carry a consumable robot to clear mines. For anti-submarine missions, an immersion sonar can be combined to detect submarines before the mothership.

"Our design is so flexible that the same platform can be used to integrate different payload types," Ng Tee Guan, vice president of ST Engineering, Marine Solutions and Solutions, told CNA.

The Venus 16 can also be used for patrols and search and rescue operations, said Ho Kah Tong, Vice President of ST Engineering, Unmanned Marine Systems, Large Systems Group.

Operators can trace a circuit and move away from the hands as the boat automatically follows the road and avoids obstacles, while using day and night cameras to send information back to the mothership.

When Venus 16 is on the high seas and the communication bandwidth is insufficient to send huge amounts of imagery data, its sensors may choose to relay only basic identification data, such as 'a structure or type of a ship.

Back at the control center of the mothership, a visualization engine will use the data to reconstruct a 3D video showing what is happening around the Venus 16. This allows operators to see the buildings on the coast or the passage of a warship, allowing them to keep an awareness of the situation.

But Mr Ho said that the visualization engine is still in development as it requires a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

AUTONOMOUS SUBMARINE VEHICLE

With the surface of the sea covered, attention is now focused on the basement.

A possible unmanned submarine system for a mother ship is the ST Engineering Mercury Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), designed to search for mines on the seabed.

Thanks to its integrated sensors, the Mercury can navigate better and detect mines in congested waters than anti-mine vehicles traveling with sonar. Mercury is also designed for shallow waters, where currents are stronger and mines are deployed.

"When you're in the 10-meter-deep area, you're experiencing surface currents and underwater currents, sometimes in different directions," Jay Poh, deputy director of the division's ST Engineering department, told CNA. communications and maritime systems.

"This type of counter-dynamics poses a problem of stability. But we have perfected this AUV and have tested it for over seven years in Singapore. "

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In addition to mine suppression, the Mercury can be used for port security as well as for search and rescue operations. Future applications include anti-submarine warfare.

"We are agnostics in payload," added Poh. "According to the concept of operations, we can then work with payload providers to integrate our form factor."

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The deliberately reduced diameter of the Mercury also allows it to adapt to common ship configurations and be deployed from any vessel equipped with a one-ton crane. The launch and recovery are done remotely with the help of a 10-inch portable tablet.

AERIAL VEHICLE WITHOUT PILOT

With respect to UAV parent ship pairing, the RSN has already done so with its missile corvette and ScanEagle, increasing the vessel's visibility by approximately 100 km.

But the ScanEagle, made by Boeing's Insitu manufacturer, is already in its third iteration. According to the Insitu website, the ScanEagle 3 has double loading capacity to collect and analyze more data in a single flight.

An Insitu spokesperson was not available to comment when AIIC went to his stand at IMDEX 2019.

However, another actor in the sector said that large marines buying new frigates or corvettes chose to pair them with larger and more robust UAVs, able to see even further.

One such option is the Skeldar V-200, a helicopter-like UAV that carries more sensors and high-performance transmitters to send information at distances up to 200 km.

"If you encounter a threat, a system of this type will have a direct benefit to you," said Richard Hjelmberg, sales director of UMS Skeldar, a joint venture bringing together the Swedish defense company Saab. "They'll see you before you see them."

Beyond its superior surveillance capabilities, the Skeldar-V200 can also take off and land vertically and autonomously, all while pressing a few buttons. No cumbersome launch and recovery equipment is needed; only a conventional helipad secured with a rubber pad and automatic landing sensors.

"From the landing, it takes only 30 seconds until the rotor stops," added Hjelmberg. "So it's easy for the ship's crew to moor it or take it to the bay."

Maternity

And then there is the mother ship itself.

At the IMDEX 2019 conference, ST Engineering unveiled its Vanguard 130, a multi-role warship capable of deploying a wide range of unmanned systems such as the USV, AUV and the US Navy. UAVs.

In a press release, the company called the vessel "a good choice for ship operators in search of increased profitability and flexible deployment of the ship".

Compared to modern frigates, it can also work with a "fairly large reduction" in the workforce, the senior vice president of ST Engineering, Technical Design Center, Mathai Pambrakaran told CNA.

Pambrakaran said the ship could carry two Venus 16 USVs, two Mercury AUVs and two ScanEagle UAVs. It also has a mission bay capable of holding smaller USVs and piloted boats.

USVs and AUVs can be deployed from recessed doors on the side or a ramp at the rear, while UAVs can take off vertically or be launched from a helipad on the back deck.

"We have both manned and unmanned crews, and this platform is a focal point for this type of activity," he added, noting that the ship can use weapons of any size to dealing with maritime, aerial and underwater threats.

The Vanguard 130 will also use a multi-element radar that does not run like conventional radar, eliminating moving parts and reducing maintenance costs. "We use a lot of new technologies on this platform," said Pambrakaran. "Cybersecurity, data analysis – it's a smart ship."

A DIFFERENT VIEW

But the concept of mother ship has its limits.

An industry player said launching and recovering SUVs from motherships is "inherently dangerous and difficult," especially if sea conditions are extremely difficult. In addition, the operators of the mother ship would have an additional task of monitoring unmanned systems.

"Here you look at the other images – surveillance, anti-submarine warfare – and you still have to worry about two USVs that you just let go six hours ago," said James Soon, president of the manufacturer. local USV Zycraft.

For patrol missions, USVs that use conventional radio communications are also limited by the distance at which they can return information, he said, noting that it was not very strategic for them to be as close to the mothership.

"If you are a mother ship and you send a USV at 12 miles, 12 miles are still in the radar horizon of the mothership," he added. "Why are you going so far just to put in the water a boat that is 12 miles longer?"

Instead, Zycraft's Vigilant USV uses satellite communications, which means it can perform surveillance at almost unlimited distances. It also uses a smaller engine and propulsion system that consumes fuel more slowly, allowing it to stay at sea for 25 days at a slower speed.

But as the Vigilant is about 17m long, Mr. Soon said he would not fit in most motherships – not as he sees the need.

"If I want to send a USV 200 km from Singapore, why do I have to use a mother ship? I can drive the USV there and leave it there for 20 days, "he added.

Mr. Soon thinks that a USV with the right size – not too small for it to hold a lot of things, but not too big to be seen from far away – can be an effective warship killer when exploited from the ground.

According to Mr. Soon, an SUV such as the Vigilant, 17 m long, has enough cargo space to hold a substantial amount of fuel and small missiles with a range of about 16 km.

"We can see a warship 10 miles away, we can get it out of a warship 10 miles away," he said, noting that the guns of a warship could not reach that kind of range, while its missiles would probably not be wasted at low value targets like USVs.

"They will not know it will happen, and when they realize it's going to happen, it's too late."