The Belgian Navy's new mine countermeasures (MCM) mothership recently conducted at-sea tests of some her unmanned systems off the coast of Brittany in France.
The trials conducted by the mothership Oostende entailed the deployment of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) and an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). These trials marked the first time that these unmanned MCM systems were operated directly from the mothership.
The testing also enabled Belgian Navy operators to assess the behaviour of the USV and the AUV when deployed at sea.
Oostende is the first of 12 ships being built by French naval shipbuilding joint venture Kership and the Belgium Naval and Robotics consortium under the rMCM program.
The Belgian and Royal Netherlands Navies will each receive six MCM motherships under the program. HNLMS Vlissingen, the second overall ship in the class and the first for the Netherlands, was delivered earlier this year.
Each MCM mothership is able to launch and recover AUVs fitted with sonars; towed sonars; unmanned aerial vehicles; and USVs of up to 12 metres and 19 tonnes each. The USVs themselves will be able to launch and recover remotely operated vehicles equipped with mine identification/destruction systems.