French-UK mine countermeasure contract awarded

Thales and BAE Systems, along with partners ECA Group, ASV, Wood & Douglas and SAAB, have won the French-UK Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) contract, as announced on 27 March.

The MMCM programme was developed under the cooperation agreement between France and the UK in 2012, and it aims to develop a prototype autonomous, remotely-operated system for detection and neutralisation of sea mines and underwater improvised explosive devices.

The programme is split into three stages, with the first phase for design and the next phases covering the manufacturing and testing of France's SLAM-F and UK's MHC mine countermeasures capabilities. The next stages are subject to contract options.

Thales will provide systems to the Royal Navy and French Navy for two years of evaluation testing. Its systems will include an unmanned surface vehicle with an autonomous navigation system, an obstacle detection and avoidance sonar, a threat identification and neutralisation capability based on Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), a towed synthetic aperture sonar and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs).

The AUVs will use new-generation SAMDIS synthetic aperture sonar and perform their tasks autonomously with control from a host ship or shore-based station via high-data-rate communication links. An integrated team comprising of personnel from Thales in France and the UK as well as BAE Systems will deliver the project.

Thales will deliver the integrated portable operations centre solution, which will incorporate command & control by Thales and BAE Systems. BAE Systems will provide the mission management system, managing the command and information systems, as well as the ROVs, the virtual visualisation and experimentation suite.