Page 62 - Australian Defence Magazine Nov 2020

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NOVEMBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
LEFT: Various upgrades to the optronics of the Collins class will support the other systems updates.
ACOUSTIC UPGRADE
Project Sea 1439 Phase 6 is delivering a Sonar Capability Assurance Program for the Collins submarines, which in- cludes major upgrades to the hull-mounted arrays. The bow sonar array is replaced by a Modular Cylindrical Array pro- vided by Thales UK, which uses similar technology to that used in the flank array of the company’s 2076 sonar system fitted to Royal Navy Astute class attack boats.
The Collins submarines’ flank array is replaced by a sys- tem from Thales France, which populates all of the avail- able space with array panels (the previous system only makes use of half of these panels), and is very similar to the system installed in the French Navy’s Suffren-Class boats on which the Attack class have evolved from.
“Each of those arrays comes with its own signal process- ing and a complete overhaul of the network which incorpo- rates all of the sonar sensors, performs signal processing
and how the information is presented to the operator,” CAPT Lindsay said. “This will provide a step change in ca- pability that we weren’t previously able to achieve by updat- ing the inboard electronics systems alone.”
Thales Australia managed the UK and France work and has completed the majority of the sonar upgrade work un- der subcontract to Raytheon Australia. Other major subsys- tem upgrades have been provided by L3Harris Oceania and Sonartech Atlas.
This upgrade is being delivered under Tranche One of the project and a second tranche is now in the design phase, with the intention of going to government for ap- proval in the second half of 2021. HMAS Waller is again the first of type to have the Tranche One sonar upgrades integrated during her full-cycle docking.
“Waller is an exciting submarine for us. Having just completed her full-cycle docking, she has all the new
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