Thales announces landmark step in joint France-UK mine hunting capability
Thales has completed the first operational configuration mission sets of the joint France-UK mine countermeasure capability being developed under the Maritime Mine Countermeasures programme.
In a 16 July release, the company stated that the trials took place off the French coast near Brest at the end of June and in the presence of officials from both countries.
Over the week-long period, four operational scenarios were carried out using subsystems developed by Thales and its partners: the USV and volume search radar, towed array sonar, two UUVs equipped with SAMDIS sonar, and the robotic mine neutralisation system.
The first two scenarios involved end-to-end threat detection, classification and localisation. In the third scenario, readings were compared with data from an earlier mission to detect changes, with the final scenario entailing relocation and identification of several mines, and the neutralisation of one of them.
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