MoD Buys Second SCOUT for Underwater Tracking

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has ordered its second SCOUT underwater tracking system from Sonardyne International Ltd.
The MoD was the first military organisation to invest in the newly developed system when it purchased its first SCOUT in February this year. The second system will also join the inventory of the Defence Logistic Organisation’s Salvage & Marine Operations Integrated Project Team, which is expected to use it to track ROVs and divers during surveys of wrecks and aircraft crash sites.
The SCOUT systems will form part of the MoD’s salvage equipment inventory, capable of deployment at short notice by either of the MoD’s two Marine Salvage Units based in Greenock, west Scotland, and Plymouth, south-west England.
SCOUT calculates the position of a subsea target by measuring the range and bearing from a vessel-mounted transceiver to a small acoustic beacon fitted to the target; a technique known as Ultra-short Baseline (USBL) positioning.