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Dstl tests autonomous launch and recovery system

15th February 2022 - 09:34 GMT | by Harry Lye in London

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The X-LARS trial USV in the autonomous Launch and Recovery System (LARS) cradle. (Photo: Dstl/ Crown Copyright)

Solving launch and recovery issues is crucial to making USVs feasible operational assets.

The UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has developed and tested a concept for an autonomous launch and recovery system (LARS) that can receive USVs in a cradle.

The autonomous LARS is designed to negate the need to put human operators onto USVs to enable their launch and recovery.

Shephard understands that the goal of the development is to allow the RN to deploy and recover boats, such as USVs, with as minimal human input as possible.

Launching and recovering boats traditionally requires multiple crew members and a person onboard a vessel.

For USVs, this means sometimes launching another boat,

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