USV Vendaval Navantia

SAES participates with Navantia in UNVEX 2021

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SAES presents its ASW solutions for RPAS and underwater sensors for USV and UUV at the Spanish drone fair.

For UAVs, SAES, which participates in UNVEX 2021 as a co-exhibitor with Navantia, supplies state-of-the-art ASW solutions based on sonobuoys, which enable RPAS as an advanced station for submarine early warning, as well as high-technology underwater sensors and improved signal processing for USV (Unmanned Surface Vehicle) and UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicles).

SAES participa con Navantia en UNVEX 2021
Illustration 1: Cristina Abad Salinas, General Director of SAES (center), together with Adolfo Hernández Solano, Commercial & Business Development Director (on the left), and Eduardo Ruiz Pérez, Civil, Security & UxVs Sales and Business Develooment Manager (on the right).

In this sense, SAES has shown two presentations at the Navantia-SAES stand. The first one about its ASW solutions for RPAS, which took place on July 7 at 1:00 p.m., by Ignacio Gutiérrez, Head of ASW Line of Business, entitled “ROASW: ASW System for operation with RPAS”.

On March 2014 SAES attended the III Congress on unmanned vehicles UNVEX’2014 in Madrid. On that occasion, the conference by Ignacio Gutiérrez, entitled “Industry Solutions II”, already indicated that the new ASW missions were going to require the use of UAVs as a distant and elevated platform without a dedicated operator.

In the second presentation, entitled “Submarine sensors in UUV and USV”, on July 8 at 11 am, Eduardo Ruiz Pérez, Sales and Business Development Manager for Civil, Security & UxVs, explained that the sensors will have a great relevance in the evolution of aspects such as autonomy of the UUV, where a technological leap is foreseen, of “strategic importance” for defence and industry.

In the field of unmanned underwater vehicles, SAES presented in December 2020, together with Navantia, the ACASUB proposal, within the Ports 4.0 initiative, to provide submarine capabilities to the USV Vendaval from Navantia, in service at the port of Ceuta. Apart from incorporating its real-time monitoring, the estimation of the noise source, object detection and the sending of acoustic signals to divers in the protection area are under development.

SAES also collaborated in the Ocean Master project to develop a vehicle with a dual function, underwater and surface, adaptable to different platforms. In this initiative, which ended a year ago, SAES worked on the payload, integrating a side scan sonar, acoustic communications and its sonar for the detection of divers.

NAVANTIA and SAES in a pioneering proposal for underwater monitoring and warning for Ports 4.0.

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SAES and Navantia has presented to the Ports 4.0 Program a project that would provide its clients with new capabilities in the submarine environment, thus expanding the capabilities of the USV Vendaval with respect to the model that already operates in the Port of Ceuta.

The proposed solution will allow the real-time monitoring of underwater noise and the estimation of the origin of the source, facilitating evaluations with the aim to compliance with environmental control regulations. Likewise, the solution will allow alerting of the existence of risky objects for navigation and controlling waste or spills in port facilities by monitoring the bottoms of channels, approaches and anchorages.

Additionally, the system will send acoustic signals and warning messages to not be allowed divers that entering into a protected area.

The USV Vendaval of Navantia is the first unmanned surface vehicle marketed and operational in real missions in Spain. It has been incorporated into Navantia Environmental Monitoring and Control System for Ceuta Port Authority.

SAES provides underwater systems and artificial intelligence technologies

The project will include multiple SDH Smart Digital Hydrophones, designed and manufactured by SAES, a side scan sonar and a deterrent system installed at the Navantia’s Vendaval USV

The deployment of multiple SDHs will allow, not only a better coverage of the area for the monitoring of environmental noise, but also the estimation of the origin (direction) of the source, by signal processing techniques.

To the integration of the side scan sonar in the USV, it will be added the use of artificial intelligence technologies (such as neural networks) applied to the sonar image processing to facilitate the detection and classification of objects in the background.

The integration of the Deterrent System in the USV Vendaval seeks to achieve a more compact solution of the system that facilitates the deployment of this equipment from small vessels (even smaller than Navantia’s USV) such as ROVs and Intervention UUVs.