Royal Navy 'Robots' to Hunt Mines

Royal Navy 'Robots' to Hunt Down Underwater Mine Menace

UK Ministry of Defence

May 30, 2005, 13:10

The Royal Navy is to take delivery of a fleet of high-tech unmanned underwater 'robots' to help track down deadly sea mines.

Known as REMUS - short for Remote Environmental Monitoring Units, the battery-powered vehicles will scan the seabed in water up to 100 m deep to ensure there are no underwater mines lurking to destroy ships and landing craft.

Under the £2.75 million programme 10 vehicles will be bought by the Defence Procurement Agency before entering service early next year. It will be the first time the RN has had an advanced unmanned underwater vehicle capable of detecting hidden shallow water mines - traditionally a dangerous job that has been carried out by naval divers.

Defence Procurement Minister Lord Drayson said:

"REMUS will give the Royal Navy the ability to undertake rapid mine reconnaissance in very shallow water - cold and dangerous work in an area which up until now could only be done by divers. It is an advanced new capability that I am delighted to say will not only reduce the risk to divers during mine detection operations, but also help the Royal Navy undertake a wide range of other important tasks, from supporting search and salvage operations to protecting our ports and harbours against terrorist attack."

Sea mines are one of the most deadly threats facing our naval forces, relatively cheap and easy to plant they can cause major problems for amphibious forces and are often notoriously difficult to detect.

The 1.6 m long torpedo shaped vehicles use advanced detectors to pin-point the location of mines, before returning to their naval handlers for the raw data to be collected and evaluated.

There are some jobs however that the REMUS robots cannot do - the task of clearing the mines it finds will still fall to highly trained naval divers.

The vehicles, manufactured by Hydroid Inc, are expected to stay in service until 2011, and are part of an ongoing initiative by the MOD to introduce unmanned equipment to undertake hazardous tasks.

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Source(©): UK Ministry of Defence