The US Navy has awarded a $53.9 million contract for robotic systems that find and deal with underwater mines without putting sailors in harm’s way.
The order went to Advanced Acoustic Concepts (AAC), a subsidiary of France’s Thales, for two undersea Remote Mine Hunting (RMH) modules plus engineering support. If all options are taken up, the deal could be worth about $196.2 million.
How the system works
- Operators control the modules from a safe distance.
- Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) produces high-resolution images of the seabed from several angles.
- AI-based target recognition helps tell real mines from harmless objects, which Thales says cuts false alarms and saves time.
- It can be deployed from both crewed and uncrewed surface vessels.
Thales is also working to combine the sonar with a system that can classify and neutralise mines in a single unit, supporting the Navy’s “Find, Fix and Finish” approach to mine warfare.
Why it matters
Sea mines remain a cheap but serious threat to shipping lanes and ports. Clearing them safely is a skill navies around the world, including the Bangladesh Navy, train for in exercises such as CARAT.
Based on reporting by Marine Insight.
Photo: Representative image of an earlier US Navy mine-hunting system (2004). U.S. Navy / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
