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Thales Australia, Austal Australia and C2 Robotics have announced a crucial partnership to develop a powerful Australian-made network capable of detecting, classifying and transmitting actionable intelligence at Australia’s northern underwater approaches.
The three defence companies, speaking at the Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition, announced the solution would involve the integration of C2’s Speartooth family of vehicles, Thales Australia’s suite of undersea warfare sensors and potentially could be fielded with Austal’s surface naval vessels.
The “surveillance network” would work to deter hostile sub-sea and surface threats by allowing surface vessels to drop and over time rotate or maintain Speartooth underwater vehicles at crucial naval chokepoints. These persistent and expendable long-range surveillance vehicles could record and then surface to report the passage of adversary contacts, such as submarines.
“This is three leading-edge Australian companies collaborating to provide relevant technology at speed,” said Michael Parker, C2 Robotics defence and maritime program director.
The layered military system integrates Thales Australia’s BlueSentry thin line towed array and BlueSeeker advanced passive sense and avoid capability into C2 Robotics’ silent, long-endurance Speartooth underwater vehicle to better leverage the coverage of the uncrewed system and extend its situational awareness across vast maritime domains. Speartooth vehicles could be “dropped” by passing Austal-manufactured Evolved Cape Class vessels, already in use with the Australian Border Force and Royal Australian Navy.
“There are seabed sensors, they’re fixed and there are sonar buoys which are sporadic and short-lived. What we give you here is endurance. So, persistence and endurance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,” said Gavin Henry, Thales Australia maritime autonomy campaign lead.
“This gives a commander much more reach and agility with regards to where the placement of ISR systems may be.
“What we’re promoting it (the solution) to do is going to sit on the seabed and conserving its energy … There are multiple payload bays, potentially full of batteries and that thing can stay for a significant period of time.”
Under the strategy, dispersed platforms could operate in concert, simultaneously being able to deploy a theatre level network of active and passive arrays across great distances to deliver true maritime domain awareness.
Nineteen Austal Cape and Evolved Cape Class patrol boats are already deployed within the Australian Defence Force and ABF fleet, and with three more currently in construction, the Evolved Cape Class patrol boat reportedly represents the ideal platform from which to deploy and manage this capability, according to the companies.
“Well, we have a philosophy of continuous improvement of our Cape Class. So, we're looking at every launch that we put out to incorporate new technologies and new options. And this is a great example that we’re hoping potentially to demonstrate this next year,” Austal research and development naval architect Fergus Hudson said.
“We also have new products, new concepts coming online as well that are directly applicable to this type of activity.”
