The Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) is contributing to Trident Juncture training objectives and conducting scientific experiments in the vicinity of the exercise area along the Spanish coastline.
In particular CMRE is deploying the NATO Research Vessel Alliance from 14-28 October 2015 to advance the use of modern mine-hunting systems such as underwater robots. The vessel will also serve as a boarding platform for boarding teams and acting as vessel of interest in support of TJ15 Maritime Security training objectives.
Search, classification and mapping missions will be tested with the MUSCLE underwater vehicle, the CMRE mine hunting mature prototype equipped with a high-resolution, high-frequency synthetic aperture sonar (SAS). MUSCLE can produce superior image quality of objects on the seafloor, has excellent navigation capabilities and the ability to cover a large area during designed autonomous missions.
As part of the Trident Juncture Mine CounterMeasure Experiment, NATO EXTAC 873 (new experimental tactics for underwater robots)will be exercised, and surveys over scientifically challenging seabed will be conducted to test the development of automatic target recognition (ATR) in difficult environments, multi-view ATR and autonomy algorithms. New upgrades for on-board processing
capabilities will be also experimented.
Finally, enhanced task arbitration will be integrated into the vehicle enabling the vehicle to autonomously decide, based on environmental knowledge, whether to adapt to ripples or currents as a priority.
