The European Defense Agency has officially concluded the second phase of the project Sabuvis IIa four-year initiative which has managed to demonstrate the coordinated use of swarms of autonomous underwater drones in real scenarios.
The program has had a budget of 3.7 million euros and has been led by Poland, with the participation of Germany, Portugal and Slovenia. The goal has been to transform the way autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) operate.
Traditionally, these systems work individually. However, this project is committed to a model inspired by the joint performance of multiple drones, functioning as a single coordinated system, sharing data in real time and distributing tasks efficiently. To understand the relevance of the advance, it is worth remembering that GPS does not work underwater, communications bandwidth is very limited and latency is high.
To overcome these limitations, The program has developed adaptive acoustic protocols capable of creating self-configurable underwater networks that allow information to be exchanged reliably between different platforms..
Key aspects such as swarm movement coordination, formation control, secure data exchange and adaptive mission execution were validated during tests in Poland, Germany and Portugal.
One of the most important advances has been to guarantee interoperability between vehicles from different manufacturers and countries through common command and control solutions. Furthermore, the project worked on three main concepts: scalable and low-cost swarms; biomimetic vehicles optimized for shallow or congested waters; and mixed swarms that combine underwater and surface vehicles.
For the European Defense Agency, This technology is especially relevant for future naval intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions..