Portuguese Navy's Trator Do Mar USV at REPMUS 2024. (Janes/Neil Dee)
The Portuguese Navy has unveiled a new unmanned surface vehicle (USV) dubbed Trator Do Mar , at NATO's Exercise ‘REPMUS 24' (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Unmanned Systems).
Trator Do Mar , meaning ‘Sea Tractor' or ‘Sea Tug' was developed by the Portuguese Navy's Unmanned Vehicles Operational Experimentation Cell (Célula de Experimentação Operacional de Veículos Não Tripulados: CEOV).
Speaking to assembled media at the ‘REPMUS 24' site in Tróia, Portugal, on 23 September, Director of the Portuguese Navy Operational Experimentation Centre (Centro de Experimentação Operacional da Marinha: CEOM) Captain António Mourinha said the Trator Do Mar is designed to tow “a passive sonar that will allow us to detect submarines using multistatic acoustic detection”.
Capt Mourinha said the Portuguese Navy would “need a fleet of these USVs to survey our maritime spaces in order to detect submarines, which are currently one of the biggest threats for the NATO Alliance in the maritime domain”. Four Trator Do Mar USVs are under construction for experimentation, with first trials to commence after ‘REPMUS 24', Capt Mourinha said.
During the briefing, Capt Mourinha also discussed the Portuguese Navy's future multi-purpose ship D João II . Regarding the use of unmanned systems from D João II
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