Author: Rainbow Kursk
On April 21, the U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet flagship, the command ship USS Whitney (LCC20), and an Egyptian Navy Perry-class guided-missile frigate conducted a joint exercise. Interestingly, during the drill, it was a strange-looking small sailing ship that explored the way in front of the formation.
This small sailboat does not have the cloth sail surface of the traditional sailing ship, but replaces it with a fixed metal sail with a solar panel, and what is even more surprising is that this small sailing ship is actually unmanned, it is a special unmanned surface boat.
The unmanned surface craft, called the Sailing Explorer, is part of the newly formed U.S. Navy CTF153 Joint Task Force, which is a Saildrone Explorer USV.
Photo: The unmanned surface boat Sailing Explorer exploring the way in front of the command ship Whitney.
This unmanned surface boat, designed and developed by the California-based Unmanned Navigation Company (Saildrone), an American unmanned systems manufacturer, was originally used to collect high-quality data from the ocean autonomously, including ocean currents, meteorology, water temperature and other data.
In civilian use, this unmanned surface boat has been widely used in various sea operations, performing data collection tasks, and has an autonomous endurance of up to 365 days.
Later, the U.S. Navy took a fancy to the performance of this unmanned boat, purchased this unmanned boat, and expanded the warning and defense circle of surface ships in a relatively inexpensive way. According to U.S. Navy Central Command, the unmanned surface boat is fitted with a set of solar-powered sensors to construct shared images of the surrounding oceans.
Image: The unmanned surface boat "Sailing Explorer" in front of an Egyptian frigate.
The unmanned boat was put into operation in the Red Sea as early as September 2021.
At that time, the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet formed an unmanned task force with the Royal Jordanian Navy to integrate unmanned systems and artificial intelligence into its operations. Since December 2021, Jordan's Aqaba Naval Base has been a joint hub for such unmanned boat operations in the Red Sea.
Image: Egyptian frigates side by side with U.S. command ships.
The unmanned boat has a high, hard fixed sail wing with a longitudinal wing girder in the middle of the sail wing and a vertical tail wing at the rear that can be adjusted.
The sail wing angle can be adjusted by the tail fin at the end of the tail to obtain enough wind energy thrust to propel the unmanned boat. The wind pushes the unmanned boat through the thrust generated by the sail wing, while the solar panels installed on the sail wing and hull are used to run the ship's meteorological and ocean sensors, electronic systems, etc. Capable of sailing at an average speed of 3 knots (5.55 km/h) and performing longer-duration missions of more than 12 months in open ocean conditions to collect marine and climatic data, the green unmanned boat can reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
In addition, on the vast ocean, the unmanned boat navigates autonomously through features in wind and ocean currents, and is equipped with an automatic identification system (AIS) transceiver, radar reflector, navigation lights and four airborne cameras to improve the safety of offshore operations.
Photo: On January 31, 2022, the "Unmanned Navigation Explorer" participated in the "Machete Express" exercise in the international maritime.
The unmanned boat can carry a range of sensors, including the Gill Windmaster 3D ultrasonic anemometer for measuring wind speed and direction, the Radiation Shielded Rotronic HC2-S3 for measuring air temperature and humidity, the Vaisala Barocap PTB210 pressure sensor for measuring air pressure, and the LI-COR LI -192SA underwater sensor for accurately measuring photosynthetically active radiation, Seabird SBE 37 sensors are used to record salinity and temperature.
Meanwhile, the Seabird SBE 37 sensor can payload for measuring dissolved oxygen, the Wetlabs ECO-FL-S G4 fluorometer for chlorophyll-a, the Heitronics CT 15.10 infrared pyrometer for sea surface temperatures, and the Dual Global Positioning System (GPS) Assisted Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) for measuring wave height and period.
This unmanned boat can be equipped with smart cameras, including a 360° high-resolution optical camera with multi-line (ML) object detection for intelligent imaging. In addition, the sensor kit includes options such as the Teledyne RDI Workhorse Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) for measuring ocean currents, the Simrad WBT Mini (EK80) echo sounder, and the Airmar DT800 (Shallow Single Beam) body-piercing sensor and the Teledyne Echotrac E20 (Deep Single Beam) Echo sounder for collecting bathymetric data.
Picture: Unmanned boat out of the water, you can see more details under the boat.
At present, the US military is paying more and more attention to the use of various unmanned surface equipment, including unmanned surface boats, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned underwater vehicles, etc., these unmanned equipment not only greatly enhances the perception ability of the US Navy, but also enables it to collect more marine data in daily navigation, further improve the data database, and this "maritime geographical data" in wartime is very valuable to the naval fleet!