UDT 2010 Broad in Maritime Defence

At the same time, downward pressure on budgets is forcing difficult decisions on force levels and equipment capability. However, underwater threats have not gone away, but merely changed in their disposition and character. With a move towards coalition operations in the less stable regions of the world, navies today find themselves increasingly operating far from home waters in relatively shallow littoral environments characterised by high ambient noise levels and reverberation levels, and marked variations in temperature and salinity.

Likewise, the sea mine, with its low cost and high disruptive potential, remains one of the most effective and disruptive maritime weapons. It is compact, cheap to procure, has a low maintenance requirement, and is deployed easily and covertly from a wide range of platforms. Yet despite its simplicity, the mine - or even just the implied threat of mines - has a disproportionate ability to deny the use of the sea space.

At the same time, the increased emphasis on homeland security and the protection of deployed ships and/or critical coastal infrastructures have forced governments, militaries and security agencies to think afresh about the technologies and techniques required to detect and interdict terrorist elements approaching their targets underwater.

And so the twin dynamics of an ever more complex threat and increasingly scarce resources are driving industry, defence research laboratories and academia alike to conceive novel technologies and system solutions that deliver high performance at an affordable price.

Navies and maritime security arms are looking to exploit the power of offboard sensors, collaborative networking and data fusion so as to improve situational awareness and accelerate the tempo of operations.

UDT Europe 2010 will reflect on these developments, recognising the impact that new operating patterns, diverse threats and continued budget constraints are having on defence planning, and showcasing the multitude of technologies that promise to yield new answers for effective underwater defence and security.

Key focus areas

Offboard mine countermeasures

Mine countermeasures (MCM) remains a vital enabler for maritime forces, whether to clear a path for an amphibious assault, or to ensure access for naval and commercial shipping traffic. This ability includes not only locating and neutralising mines, but also identifying those areas where mines are not present.

Maritime security and asset protection

Maritime security has assumed an ever greater importance in recent years, as military forces, government agencies and commercial entities alike have come to recognise the threat posed by irregular combatants and terrorists to critical maritime infrastructures. Swimmers, quite possibly using low signature rebreather apparatus, represent a particularly difficult target. As a consequence, a plethora of new underwater acoustic surveillance and alerting devices have been brought to market, with manufacturers naturally quick to expound how commercial ports, naval bases, coastal infrastructures (such as transhipment areas, power stations or desalination plants) and offshore installations could all benefit from their proprietary solutions.

Networked operations

In an age where information superiority is key, and the tenets of network-centric capability enshrined in concepts and doctrine, undersea assets frequently remain disadvantaged by their inability to readily exchange and share information with surface units and shore bases. Indeed, while the submarine is, by its very nature, intended to be a covert asset that remains deep for extended periods, the increased propensity for operations in direct support of task groups and/or joint force commanders is driving sub-surface community to address the challenges of how to meets growing demands for improved connectivity and higher data rates.

Unmanned underwater vehicles

There is no doubting that the continued development and exploitation of autonomous Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) represents a critical thread in the future undersea warfare plans of many navies. As with unmanned vehicles in the air and ground domains, the key attraction of UUVs is their ability to perform ‘dull, dirty and dangerous' missions in a safer, cheaper and more flexible manner than can be achieved with manned platforms. Accordingly, their potential and flexibility is being examined across a wide range of roles and missions to meet a multitude of capability requirements and operational drivers (to reduce risk to personnel, to perform automated reconnaissance, to access areas under all conditions, and to function as force multipliers).