The Connecticut-based ThayerMahan and Australia’s
Ocius Technology Ltd. on Monday announced an agreement to combine technologies on Unmanned Surface Vessels, taking aim at AUKUS Pillar 2 cooperation.
This agreement will have ThayerMahan install its Outpost passive acoustic maritime surveillance system on Ocius’ Bluebottle USV.
The companies argued this will create uncrewed acoustic sensing systems that can be deployed “to create distributed undersea surveillance networks in support of Pillar 2 of the AUKUS agreement. These systems will enable delivery of cost-effective, wide-area sensor capacity wherever needed.”
While Pillar 1 of the Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) technology sharing agreement focuses on helping Australia produce and field nuclear-powered attack submarines, Pillar 2 focuses on sharing other naval and military technologies.
On May 20, Ocius CEO Robert Dane said engineers from both companies combined the technology readiness level 8 (-9) Outport system with their technology readiness level Bluebottle USVs and “successfully achieved a results-driven demonstration,” during a four-day event in April.
This occurred during the Association for Uncrewed Vessel Systems International XPONENTIAL global conference and exhibition in San Diego.
ThayerMahan argued the demonstration should the combination of technologies “presents credible, highly effective, operational, undersea surveillance from an uncrewed platform that is capable of long-duration deployments.”
During the event, the Bluebottle USV was deployed 10 miles offshore with a deep-towed passive acoustic array and an onboard digital signal processor. Live data, which was streamed to the show floor, was used to detect and classify undersea, surface and airborne contacts in the approaches to San Diego in near-real time.
“Our collaboration with Ocius helps us to maximize the performance of our scalable surveillance systems. Together, we will help AUKUS nations know what is in the undersea domain – preserving their advantage in a changing and uncertain world,” Mike Connor, chairman and CEO of ThayerMahan, said in a statement.
On May 20 ThayerMahan said it already took delivery of the first two Bluebottle USVs at its Groton, Conn., headquarters.
The companies pitched the new USV variant as a way to provide “significant undersea defense capabilities” for the U.S. and Royal Australian navies in a cost-effective manner for anti-submarine warfare assets.