Ocean 2020 - Baltic Sea Demo
In august 2021 Saab took lead for a live demonstration as part of the EU-funded OCEAN2020 defence research project. The successful demonstration was held in the Baltic Sea, with the participation of 17 European companies, research institutes and defence ministries. Synergy between sea, air and underwater unmanned systems.
Unmanned systems and platforms offer several advantages: obtaining a permanent presence but with the use of limited personnel, removing risk of exposure to the threats to personnel, and reduced costs. For a country like Sweden, which a long coastline to protect, autonomous systems can bring great advantages in cooperation with traditional ship systems.
“The number of ships in the navies today are decreasing. And the reason for that is increased complexity and thereby higher costs. For the future, navies needs to transform in the direction where unmanned assets become more and more frequent.”
The biggest European Defence Research Project as of yet
In august 20201 Saab took lead for a live demonstration as part of the EU-funded OCEAN2020 defence research project. The successful demonstration was held in the Baltic Sea, with the participation of 17 European companies, research institutes and defence ministries.
Find out what it was all about in this 2-minute video:
The purpose of the live demonstration off the southern coast of Sweden was to demonstrate the capabilities of 13 different unmanned vehicles, four of them from Saab, and the communication and control processes that enable cooperation amongst them.
"By participating in this demonstration, Saab proved it has a unique capability to connect assets in the air, on the water and under the surface. This is a market segment with a lot of competition, but few have the wide competence as Saab does when it comes to the sensors, communication and management systems that can integrate so many complex systems in a flexible manner,” said Ingrid Leijonhufvud, Saab’s OCEAN2020 Project Manager.
Get a deeper insight into the demonstration (11-minute video):
Profound experience within unmanned solutions
Saab started way back and some of the systems have already years of user experience behind them.
In the Baltic Sea Demo Saab participated with two unmanned surface vessels, the Patrol Craft CB90 Enforcer III and the Surveillance Craft Piraya, which demonstrated their autonomous operation and collaboration capabilities.
Below the waves, Saab’s Deep Vision Side Scan Sonar locates any hidden threats while the Sea Wasp remotely operated vehicle operates in the depths to neutralise dummy sea mines. On-shore, Saab’s Giraffe AMB radar searched for and tracked the targets while the 9LV Combat Management System provided a comprehensive situational overview. Saab’s Secure Service Oriented Architecture connected and distributed the information in an efficient way between all the systems.