Elbit demos unmanned antimine, antisub, EW craft in North Sea trials
NewsJune 30, 2017
HAIFA, Israel. Elbit Systems recently demonstrated the Seagull, its multimission unmanned surface vehicle (USV) during binational (Belgium/the Netherlands) mine countermeasure (MCM) trials for unmanned maritime systems; the event was organized by the Directorate General of Material Resources (DGMR) of the Belgian ministry of defense.
Seagull is a 39-foot-long long USV that can be operated from a mother ship or from shore stations that enables multimission capabilities including antisubmarine warfare (ASW), MCM, electronic warfare (EW), or maritime-security functions. It features built-in command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) capabilities for enhanced situational awareness and offers mission endurance of more than four days.
During the multicompany USV trials -- conducted at the beginning of June in the North Sea off the coast of Belgium's Zeebrugge Naval Base -- one Seagull USV demonstrated its MCM capability, scanning the entire test area in one path, using both the K5900 side scan sonar (SSS) and the R2Sonic forward looking sonar (FLS) in the exercise's search, detection, and classification trial. On the second day of the operation, the Seagull platform used a VideoRayROV, a light remotely operated vehicle (ROV), to perform the identification and demolition phase of the mine-hunting mission.
