GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Future capabilities need to be effective, mobile, adaptive, scalable, and flexible to counter threats from the underwater domain, leading to new technical and conceptual solutions to be developed. As traditional naval ships will become an increasingly scarce and expensive resource and will not be sufficient to provide the necessary geographical coverage and flexibility needed for the future, research is required on modular unmanned systems for underwater warfare with prerequisite principles of unmanned air, surface and underwater (UxV) standards.

Underwater communication, detection, and monitoring of moving targets are common denominators for traditional warfare areas such as Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), underwater surveillance, harbour protection, and seabed warfare. Mission specific sensor solutions and tactical approaches differ in these, despite having common denominators. Timely detection of moving underwater threats at sufficient range is identified as one of the biggest challenges. Providing technical solutions for underwater target detection, allowing to prepare appropriate reaction to a subsurface threat, will therefore impact the whole range of warfare areas mentioned above. The aim is to develop technological novelties at least up to TRL 5.