French firm launches mine-hunting underwater drone

French underwater drone maker SEABER has launched RAVEN, a compact autonomous underwater vehicle for hunting naval mines and surveying the seabed that weighs 13 kg (29 pounds) and can be launched by a single operator, and the company says it will offer performance comparable to high-end conventional mine-hunting drones at about one-third of their price, SEABER announced on Oct. 26.

The company, based in the Brittany port of Lorient, did not give a price for RAVEN, name any launch customers or say when deliveries will begin, and it did not identify which competing vehicles it used as the benchmark for its cost claim.

RAVEN is 131 to 137 cm (about 4.5 feet) long with a diameter of 12 cm (4.7 inches), can dive to 300 meters (985 feet), travels at 3 to 6 knots, and can run for up to eight hours. Every version carries a side-scan sonar, which paints an acoustic image of the seabed to spot mine-like objects, and the vehicle comes in two configurations: the SCAN-MAG adds a magnetometer to detect and locate metal objects such as naval mines and shipwrecks, while the SCAN-LUMEN adds a high-definition camera and a 24,000-lumen lighting system so operators can visually inspect a contact.

Navigation is the part of the design SEABER is emphasizing most. The vehicle relies on LYNX, the company’s own optical-based inertial navigation system, which SEABER says drifts by less than 0.2% of the distance traveled on straight runs and does even better on the back-and-forth lawnmower patterns used to search an area, combined with a Doppler velocity log that measures speed over the seabed. Accurate navigation matters for mine hunting because a detected object is only useful if divers or a neutralization drone can find it again later.

Before diving, RAVEN fixes its position with a dual-antenna satellite navigation receiver that SEABER says resists jamming, an issue for navies operating in waters where GPS signals are deliberately disrupted, as has happened widely in the Baltic and Black seas.

Underwater, operators can send commands and track the vehicle in real time through an acoustic modem at ranges of up to 2 to 3 km (1.2 to 1.9 miles) using SEABER’s SEAPLAN software. At the surface it communicates by UHF radio at up to 5 km (3 miles) and by Iridium satellite, and it carries infrared lights visible only through night-vision equipment so crews can find and recover it at night without giving away their position.

“With RAVEN®, our ambition is simple: to deliver the performance of the best conventional AUVs at one-third of their price. Thanks to our LYNX® navigation technology and the integration of advanced inspection and detection capabilities, we believe RAVEN has the potential to fundamentally change the rules of the market,” said Vidal Teixeira, president of SEABER.

RAVEN moves SEABER up from the micro-AUV segment, where it built its YUCO range of small underwater drones that it has supplied to European navies for mine countermeasures work. The company says it has sold more than 200 AUVs internationally through a worldwide distributor network.