French ECA Group joining OCEAN2020 with USVs and AUVs

French autonomous systems developer ECA Group announced its participation in the EU-led autonomous systems integration project OCEAN2020.

With Italy’s Leonardo at the helm, ECA Group will join partners from 15 European countries to work on the first cross-European military research program to-date.

OCEAN2020 will examine the integration of unmanned platforms of different types (fixed wing, rotary wing, surface and underwater) with naval units’ command and control centers to enable data exchange via satellite with command and control centers on land.

The joint and cooperative use of both manned and unmanned vehicles will also be demonstrated as part of the project.

ECA Group will be part of the first demo, coordinated by the Italian Navy, scheduled to take place in the Mediterranean Sea in 2019. The company will deploy its Inspector MKII USV and one of its A-serie AUVs (A9, A18, A27) to conduct maritime interdiction operations against suspicious vessels involved in illegal weapons trafficking and smuggling activities.

Parts of the missions deal with the localisation and the identification of sunken illegal goods/weapons on the seabed. This is achieved efficiently through the collaborative teamwork of the USVs/AUVs whose mission can be configured, planned for, executed and supervised using ECA Group Mission Management Platform UMIS. Recovery of the sunken, localised/identified, crates could then be performed, whenever decided, by a remotely operated ROV (ECA Group range of ROVs).