QinetiQ
is to demonstrate the integration of unmanned systems into Royal Navy
operations, under a £1m contract with the UK Ministry of Defence
(MOD). Under the contract with the Mine countermeasures and Hydrographic
Capability (MHC) team in the MOD’s Defence Equipment and Support
(DE&S), QinetiQ will provide a demonstration system to explore the
integration of unmanned surface and underwater vehicles into Royal Navy
operations. The system includes displays, software and computing infrastructure;
it is fully transportable and capable of integrating unmanned systems
from multiple suppliers. |
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The demonstrator
will play a central role in the mine warfare themed aspects of Unmanned
Warrior, the Royal Navy’s showcase of unmanned systems due to
be held in October 2016. The activity will take place around the BUTEC
facility in Scotland, operated by QinetiQ on behalf of the MOD under
the Long Term Partnering Agreement (LTPA)
After the Unmanned Warrior exercise, the command and control system
will be operated by the Royal Navy’s Maritime Autonomous Systems
Trials Team (MASTT) as part of their suite of systems under evaluation
and trials.
The new project follows a £4.2m contract with the Defence Science
and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), announced in November 2015, to deliver
a similar command and control demonstration system for the co-ordination
of multiple unmanned vehicles. It gives the MHC programme the means
to fully understand the technology risks and performance boundaries
for unmanned systems and to explore how to integrate equipment into
an overall capability. As such, it complements work on the UK-French
Maritime Mine Counter Measures programme and the UK Sweep capability
demonstrator as the newest of the MHC demonstrators.
The objective of the overall programme is to minimise the number of
bespoke screens and controls needed to conduct missions and improve
efficiency through increased levels of system-to-system communication,
minimising the risk of human error by reducing the burden on operators.
Both projects will be delivered by QinetiQ leading a team comprising
BAE Systems, Thales, Seebyte and Atlas Elektronik UK.
The work is being led by QinetiQ’s Maritime Systems team, working
as part of the QinetiQ Maritime Autonomy Centre (QMAC) in Portsmouth.
QMAC was established in 2013 to accelerate the UK’s adoption of
autonomous systems by facilitating their design, development, testing
and evaluation.
Sarah Kenny, Managing Director for QinetiQ’s Maritime, Land and
Weapons business, said: “This contract is a real opportunity for
the maritime defence enterprise to demonstrate successful transition
of technology from the research domain to the end user. The project
pulls together a number of separate research programmes and integrates
these with existing equipment to fully enable RN MASTT planned activities
at the same time as supporting the MHC Assessment Phase. QinetiQ is
delighted that QMAC is already delivering value to the RN and I look
forward to what promises to be an exciting future for this growing part
of our business.”
Technical information
Based on established mine countermeasures tools and components developed
by a number of previously independent research activities, the solution
fuses local and remote sensor data and is hosted on the Dstl Open Architecture
Combat System (OACS). Integral mission planning and management applications
enable operation of a range of vehicles from different suppliers, all
from a single operator workstation. |
