The French defence procurement agency (DGA) has awarded Naval Group a new contract to study the design of a future Unmanned Combat Underwater Vehicle (UCUV).
June 14, 2023. The French defence procurement agency (DGA) has awarded Naval Group a new contract to study the design of a future Unmanned Combat Underwater Vehicle (UCUV).
The nine-month study will allow Naval Group to examine principal use cases and develop system architectures for a UCUV.
The naval use of unmanned and autonomous military systems is seen as a genuine strategic asset, and is increasingly sought after by navies for their intelligence, surveillance and seabed control missions.
“Naval Group is very proud to support the French Ministry of the Armed Forces in the study of this new unmanned capability, which will help to kick-start the development of highcapacity autonomous systems,” Aurore Neuschwander, Naval Group’s Director of Drones, Autonomous Systems and Underwater Weapons said.
Naval Group has been investing its own funds since 2016 to develop a first demonstrator of a large underwater drone (XL-UUV).
This demonstrator will be qualified at sea in the summer of 2023, which will enable the company to test various technological bricks in a short cycle.
Among the capabilities developed by Naval Group and its partners is the Controlled Decision-Making Autonomy (ADC), designed to be the onboard brain for drones, while offering sailors the ability to supervise all unmanned systems in complete safety, and to plan and carry out complex missions, as a complement to manned ships.
The company expects that the first UCUV project paves the way for additional work to quickly develop the key technological bricks of such a drone, in relation to the development of the first demonstrator.
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STUTTGART, Germany – The French military has awarded Naval Group a new contract to study the design of a future armed unmanned underwater vehicle, the company announced June 7.
The nine-month study will allow Naval Group to examine principal use cases and develop system architectures for an Unmanned Combat Underwater Vehicle, or UCUV. Its missions would include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), with the idea of helping the French military “master” the seabed, according to Naval Group.
The Armed Forces Ministry’s procurement office, the Direction Générale de l’Armement, awarded the contract on May 4, per a company statement.
The study comes as Naval Group prepares its extra-large unmanned underwater vehicle (XL-UUV) demonstrator for sea qualification this summer. The company began developing the system in 2016 and first unveiled it in 2021.
Once qualified, Naval Group will use the XL-UUV to test various “technological bricks” in a short cycle, the company said. One such brick could be the Controlled Decision-Making Autonomy (ADC) capability, developed with France’s national aerospace research center ONERA to be an “onboard brain for drones.”
“This first UCUV project paves the way for additional work to quickly develop the key technological bricks of such a drone, in relation to the development of the first demonstrator,” Naval Group said in the release.
The company did not respond to questions regarding the cost of the study before this article’s publication.
Seabed warfare has become a dominant topic of conversation in Europe, especially for the French military. Paris was the first government to issue a dedicated military strategy for the ocean floor domain in early 2022, and a portion of the nation’s €10 billion ($10.7 billion) dedicated to innovation in the proposed 2024-2030 Military Program Law will focus on the topic. A key goal for Paris is to develop an underwater drone that can reach depths of 6,000 meters.
The lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, voted on Wednesday to approve the six-year programming law, known as the Loi de Programmation Militaire (LPM) in French, by a vote of 408-87. The bill now goes to the Senate as the upper chamber for a vote.