The US Navy just used a drone ship to clear a minefield
by Alex Hollings · September 12, 2019
Recently, the U.S. Navy announced plans to commission the world’s largest autonomous naval vessel, clearly building on the successes they’ve had with the Sea Hunter program — a drone warship purpose built to aid in hunting encroaching enemy submarines. This week, the Pentagon announced that they had reached yet another major milestone in aquatic drone warfare, using a combination of two unmanned systems to clear an underwater minefield.
According to the Navy, they recently completed a “single-sortie mine hunting†mission. The mission set entailed deploying one autonomous boat equipped with sonar to detect mine-like objects in the water. Once it identified what it believed to be a mine, the boat then deployed a secondary autonomous system tasked with closing with and destroying the mine. Traditionally, this arduous and incredible dangerous task has been left to highly trained divers, but by utilizing complimentary drone systems, the Navy now believes it can finally pull the men “our of the minefield.â€
https://thenewsrep.com/118896/the-us-navy-just-used-a-drone-ship-to-clear-a-minefield/
