In the context of its Naval Innovation Days, DCNS has successfully achieved the coordinated deployment of three types of drone, underwater, airborne and surface, thanks to its I4®Drones mission system. It is the first time in Europe that a company has organised and implemented such a successful end-to-end performance. During this demonstration, it was possible to detect a suspect vessel, which was identified and neutralised in less than twenty minutes.
DCNS passes another milestone in the development of naval drones
DCNS, in partnership with SMEs/SMIs, conducted a large-scale sea demonstration with the deployment of three drones: its own D19 underwater drone, the REMORINA surface drone produced by its subsidiary Sirehna and the IT180 mini-UAV from the ECA Group. These three drones were deployed off the coast of Toulon from a land base in Saint-Mandrier.
The deployment scenario consisted of detecting, identifying and neutralising through drone deployment from a land-based centre a vessel representing a threat for a protected area. I4®Drones*, DCNS’s mission system, is the product of several years of R&D and innovation and the fruit of the Group’s recognised expertise in system development, in particular for the naval integration of drones. DCNS coordinated:
– The D19, an underwater drone, for the detection phase.
– The IT180 UAV, a rotary-wing drone, for the identification phase.
– REMORINA, a naval drone, for the final step of interception and neutralisation.
The planning, management and real-time operation of the drones and payloads, and mission restitution were entirely conducted via DCNS’s I4®Drones multi-drone mission system. The system was installed in an operations centre based on the DCNS Toulon-Ollioules site, where the mission’s progress was transmitted in real time onto an image wall in the context of the Naval Innovation Days.
This success confirms DCNS’s engineering and innovation capacities in the area of military naval drones and its positioning of naval-drone system engineer for its client navies.