SWArm and Teaming operation of manned & unmanned underwater vehicle SHOAL

ongoing

The SWAT-SHOAL project is focused on researching technologies that improve collaboration between manned and unmanned assets in missions against moving subsurface threats. The aim is to develop the concept of a System of Systems (SoS) that integrates different types of vehicles in a swarm or squad, organized by teams but working as a single unit, with the goal of achieving greater performance and higher efficiency in the execution of a broad spectrum of missions. The use of different vehicle types, as well as the possibility of commanding from different platforms or divers allows to face an extended and more complex range of scenarios, improving team efficiency, leveraging the different capabilities in terms of unmanned vehicles, their sensors and overall performance that each resource can bring into the operational objectives. The diversity of platforms that configure the SoS allows broadening the type of missions to be executed, for example surveillance and reconnaissance, mine-countermeasures, collaborative engagement or support amphibious operations. The project specially considers the execution of missions in confined and shallow waters (CSW), analyzing the specific characteristics of this environment. Strengthened cooperation between the engineer and the end user will take place during feasibility studies as well as the design phase to integrate all these components into the SoS demonstrator. SWAT-SHOAL representative functionalities will be implemented to be validated in a laboratory through simulation. A subset of these functionalities will be demonstrated in seawater. This demonstrator will validate the SoS concept and architecture that will be developed under SWAT-SHOAL project.