In latest weeks the Israel Navy has for the primary time deployed unmanned underwater autos (UUVs) within the nation’s financial waters. The vessels have the flexibility to depict a broad maritime image, by monitoring and characterizing the actions of vessels crusing in Israel’s financial waters. The info generated by the UUVs is collected, documented and utilized by the IDF to investigate threats and train its management at sea and specifically to guard offshore strategic belongings: Israel’s gasoline rigs.
The naval divisions of Israel’s main protection corporations have been growing, manufacturing and advertising unmanned naval vessels on a big scale for a few decade. Elbit Methods, for instance, bought the Seagull multi-mission unmanned floor vessel to a rustic within the Asia-Pacific area in 2021, which is designed for anti-ship warfare. In December 2022, Seagull took half within the worldwide Digital Horizon train, which passed off within the Persian Gulf close to the coast of Iran. The train concerned cooperation between 17 unmanned naval vessel producers from all over the world, beneath the auspices of the US Fifth Fleet, whose residence base is in Bahrain’s capital Manama.
On the identical time, Rafael is producing the “Protector”, which is an unmanned floor automobile for the safety and help of the navy. The Protector features a high-pressure water cannon, in addition to deadly weapons such because the Mini-Hurricane, a light-weight machine gun system tailored for missions alongside coasts and in ports.
One other firm that has been coping with the topic for a few years is Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which in 2014 unveiled the Katana unmanned naval floor automobile for maritime safety. Katana offers an answer, for instance, for strategic maritime belongings equivalent to drilling rigs and oil pipelines.
IAI can also be very lively within the discipline of UUVs. Notable amongst these is the BlueWhale, an unmanned submarine, which is the product of cooperation between IAI and German firm Atlas Electronics. BlueWhale allows intelligence gathering utilizing a telescopic mast that emerges from the water throughout diving (much like a submarine’s periscope), on which radar and electro-optical techniques are put in to detect targets at sea and on shore. By means of the satellite tv for pc communications antennas on the mast, the info collected is transmitted in actual time to the designated command posts, which might be situated anyplace, at sea and on shore.
IAI VP and CEO of its Elta Electronics unit Dror Bar not too long ago signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the DEFEA exhibition in Greece with HAI CEO Rear Admiral Alexandros Diakopoulos for integrating BlueWhale into the Greek Navy.
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The UUV, which is 10.9 meters lengthy and weighs 5.5 tons, is operated electrically and might attain a pace of seven knots and might patrol for not less than 10 days, relying on its missions. Submarine detection and acoustic intelligence gathering is carried out utilizing tens of meters of sonar, which is put in on each side of the submarine. In line with the VMR Analysis Institute, the army unmanned submarine market is predicted to develop from about $3.4 billion in 2021 to about $8 billion in 2030.
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on Might 27, 2025.
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