Atlas Elektronik to deliver new autonomous minehunting boat to Royal Navy

Atlas Elektronik UK (AEUK) has been contracted by the DE&S Mine Hunting Capability (MHC) team to deliver a further ARCIMS uncrewed minehunting system for the Royal Navy.

As informed, the uncrewed surface vessel-based system named RNMB HYDRA will complement the four existing ARCIMS systems (RNMBs HUSSAR, HALCYON, HARRIER and HAZARD) being supplied to the Royal Navy for minesweeping and minehunting tasks.

“I am delighted in the RN’s decision to make further investments into the capability offered by ARCIMS, which have been delivered and supported under the UK Sweep and Wilton projects. The flexibility of the platform to deliver across the MCM domain once again allows us to showcase the deployment of both our own payloads and those of 3rd parties,” Wes Galliver, Head of Surface Ship Systems Division said.

According to the company, RNMB HYDRA will be fitted with advanced sense and avoid autonomy, a launch and recovery system (LARS), and towed side-scan sonar. The command and control will be from a portable command centre (PCC) and combine UXV autonomy software with Seebyte’s planning and analysis software.

The platform will be delivered to the Royal Navy by late 2022 and deployed for operational evaluation in early 2023, the company concluded.

To remind, the navy took delivery of 3rd autonomous minehunting boat RNMB Hebe in June 2021. The boat joined its sister vessels Harrier and Hazard as part of the Royal Navy’s crewless minehunting program Project Wilton.