US Navy receives underwater drones, reconnaissance UAVs VIDEO

US developers have unveiled prototypes of two promising unmanned systems for the US Navy at the SNA2024 Surface Navy Symposium.

Caliber.Az reports citing Raytheon's website that one of them is a semi-autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle called Barracuda. The system is designed to detect, identify and destroy bottom, surface and floating mines.

Its advanced signal processing and computer algorithms offer real-time, computer-aided detection and classification against a full spectrum of mines in deep and shallow waters. The coordinates of a potential mine are transmitted to the drone by the operator via GPS after the threat has been detected by the AN/AQS-20C mine countermeasures sonar system.

When the drone reaches its target, it detects the object with its sonar and then examines it with its camera. Once the mine is identified, the drone destroys it from a safe distance using a launcher with special munitions.

The second promising development was presented by Sparton. These are reconnaissance drones launched from a submarine.

At the moment, the developer has two versions of the drone with similar characteristics, which have not yet been disclosed. The UAV will be launched from the submarine via a special three-inch container.