Until now, the only way to clear the waters of submarine mines was to send manned boats to the area of danger to deactivate or destroy them. To end that risk, Elbit , an Israeli defense and security technologies firm, has designed an unmanned ship .
They call it “Seagull” (seagull), and it is a 12-meter-long robotic vessel with an autonomous navigation system capable of avoiding obstacles . It is sent to the chosen areas in missions of observation, search, detection and elimination of submarine and surface mines , which it can neutralize with the weapons it integrates. Its autonomy is 96 hours.
Elbit affirms that its system will allow up to two of these vessels to be handled simultaneously , but has not provided further details of their operation or announced when they will be operational.
The ingenuity of the Israeli firm is yet another move in the arms race to develop autonomous ships. At the end of 2014, the US Navy carried out a test in which it managed to operate 13 robotic patrol boats simultaneously from a single console , and several countries are working on their prototypes of this type of vessel for the detection and elimination of mines.
Image: Elbit Systems
