Page 47 - Australian Defence Magazine Nov 2018
P. 47

The next generation of
Australian submarines will work with unmanned technology during its life.
hope is that the act of intelligence-gather- ing will not exacerbate the crisis which has led to the surveillance in the first place.
An emerging alternative is unmanned or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). They have to be autonomous because it is difficult for them to link back to the mother submarine on a continuous basis. If the ve- hicle runs into an underwater obstacle, for example, it has to find its way around.
The US Navy is currently experimenting with small Remus vehicles on board sub- marines. Previous attempts to use larger ve- hicles foundered because it was difficult to recover them. For example, a torpedo-size AUV died because the recovery mechanism occupied two of the submarine’s four tor- pedo tubes. Reportedly the current project accepts that the vehicle will have to be ex- pended after it completes its mission. A key to using such vehicles is improvements in underwater data links, which are possible thanks to Moore’s Law.
It makes a considerable difference if the AUV can beam back what it learns without having to return to the submarine.
At some point it will presumably be possible, moreover, for the AUV to
return to the submarine, to be tak- en aboard in some efficient way. The current US Navy effort employs the Dry Deck Shelters devised in the first place to support SEALs.
ISR mission
The idea of intelligence-gathering
AUVs is not new. About a decade
ago, for example, a mock-up of a surveil- lance AUV carrying intercept antennas was shown at a US Sea-Air-Space show. Appar- ently it was not built.
More generally, AUVs can multiply (in effect) a force by adding sensors without re- quiring more ships. AUVs are already being used in mine countermeasures, but usually they are explained as a means of keeping sailors further away from the minefields they are trying to neutralize. The multiplier possibility deserves more attention. Right now a single minehunter typically explores an area by examining each potential mine, then neutralizing those deemed to be real. That rather protracted process can have un- fortunate consequences.
For example, before landing troops a commander generally wants to know whether the beach is mined. Potential en- emies generally have limited mine stocks, so it is quite possible that the area off the beach is clear. Spending weeks making sure of that
is a good way to alert an enemy. At the least he can mass his own troops near the beach to massacre a landing force.
An AUV can explore a potential landing beach. It is generally small enough that it will not trigger mines; even if it does, it is ex- pendable. Current technology may well not be up to deciding automatically that some- thing on the bottom is a real mine, but the AUV can bring back images which human experts can examine. At the least, a mass of AUVs can show that a beach appears to have been mined, and that it may be wise to land elsewhere. The more AUVs that are used, the faster the process can run. Ideally the AUVs run underwater and, like submarines, are not particularly visible from the shore.
Mine countermeasures
This is not a new idea. Remus AUVs were used successfully to examine Iraqi ports in 2003. Several navies use AUVs in mine countermeasures. What is new is the idea of deploying mine detecting AUVs in quan- tity from submarines, to work in parallel.
lance target becomes aware of the cloud, that knowledge does not give away the position of the submarine. That contrasts dramati- cally with current surveillance technology, in which the submarine pierces the surface with a visible mast. Current technology succeeds because a small submarine mast is often diffi- cult to detect – but that will probably change over time. It may change particularly if coun- tries buy numerous unmanned air vehicles for coastal surveillance.
Miniature air vehicles currently exist, although their capacity is limited though likely to grow considerably. The submarine offshore might sift what the unmanned air vehicles collected and pass the results back to Australia via a high-capacity satellite link. This is not a new idea – the US Navy was talking about such vehicles about 2001 – but it has not yet materialized anywhere in mature form. That a small air vehicle can operate more or less autonomously is very much an application of Moore’s Law.
A cloud of miniature aircraft would cer- tainly be detectable, and might well give away the presence of the submarine. That may be undesirable because it can have po- litical consequences. The essence of covert intelligence-gathering is that the target not be aware that it is being done. Quite aside from any question of embarrassment, the
If the AUVs can map a potential minefield sufficiently precisely, other underwater vehicles can be deployed to attack the sup- posed mines, using self-propelled anti-mine torpedoes which already exist. This sort of mine clearance can be carried out by exist- ing mine countermeasures ships, the most important limit being their capacity for the underwater vehicles. However, the autono- mous character of the AUVs suggests a fu- ture in which submarines are the best way to clear a landing zone covertly. The more covert, the less the possibility that an enemy will be able to deploy enough troops on a beach to break up a landing.
Australia generally relies on technological leverage to make up for limited numbers. The combination of submarines and AUVs of- fers just such leverage. Similarly, rapid covert mine clearance off a potential landing beach would make the most of the limited number of troops the Australian amphibious force can deploy at one time.
www.australiandefence.com.au | November 2018 | 47
“It makes a considerable difference if the AUV can beam back what it learns without having to return to the submarine.”
DEFENCE


































































































   45   46   47   48   49