Royal Navy using UAS to navigate ice
The Royal Navy’s HMS Protector ice patrol vessel is trialing the use of small UAS to navigate through the Antarctic region, the service announced on 14 April.
The UAS - a quadcopter and the Laser-Sintered Aircraft (SULSA) 3D printed fixed wing UAS - are smaller and less sophisticated than the ScanEagle UAS operated from other Royal Navy vessels.
The quadcopter is being used for short-range reconnaissance missions, while the 3kg SULSA is carrying out missions of up to 30 minutes' duration. SULSA is controlled from a laptop onboard the vessel, and conducts missions at 60mph before landing in the water and being retrieved by a support vessel.
The UAS are being used to route scout for the survey ship so the crew can navigate through the thick ice of frozen seas. The results of the trial have been fed back to Royal Navy headquarters in Portsmouth, 700X Squadron in Culdrose – the navy’s dedicated unmanned aircraft unit – and the Maritime Warfare Centre at HMS Collingwood.
Commodore James Morley, Assistant Chief of Staff Maritime Capability, Royal Navy, said: 'I am delighted with the successful deployment of small unmanned aerial vehicles from HMS Protector in the Antarctic... The whole team has overcome significant hurdles to demonstrate the enormous utility of these aircraft for affordable and persistent surveillance and reconnaissance from ships – even in the environmentally challenging environment of the Antarctic.
'Although this was a relatively short duration trial to measure the relative merits of fixed and rotary wing embarked systems, we are continuing to review our options for acquisition of maritime unmanned aerial vehicles in the future.'
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