USV Vendaval will soon be fielded for a NATO demonstration in Portugal in September. (Navantia)
Spanish shipbuilder Navantia has entered the unmanned maritime systems market with its Viento family of modular multimission unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) with an eye on export customers.
Presented as a complete suite of systems, the Viento USV product range comprises command, control, communications, and computer (C4) system as well as platform control, navigation, and obstacle detection and collision avoidance technologies.
It can be equipped with lethal and non-lethal effectors such as a remote weapon station, water cannon, loudspeaker, as well as a range of sensors including a navigation radar, sonar, electro-optical infrared (EO/IR) system, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system, inertial navigation system (INS), and automatic identification system (AIS).
The USV can be integrated with shore- or ship-based command-and-control systems and can also serve as a mothership for other unmanned vehicles. It can be directly controlled via tele-operation, although it also offers semi-autonomous operation using preplanned or user-determined waypoints. An automatic return-to-home option is available.
The Viento is designed to perform a range of defence and security operations such as mine warfare, protection of critical coastal infrastructure, as well as surveillance and environmental control missions including support against illegal activities, counter-terrorism, and search and rescue (SAR).
Navantia officials told Janes that the company can modify any existing high-speed aluminium-hulled craft for unmanned operation.
It is working with local company SAES to integrate an underwater acoustic detection system to the USV.
Navantia earlier developed USV Vendaval using AISTER's RAL-900-ZSF patrol boat as its baseline platform. It was delivered to the Port Authority of Ceuta for surveillance and environmental monitoring missions.
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