Page 8: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2012)

The U.S. Navy?s Knife sh UUV is a cutting-edge mine hunter, with the ability to  nd and identify mines, even the most challenging undersea environ- ments. Knife sh is the new Surface Mine Coun- termeasure (SMCM) Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV), built by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems of Mcleansville, NC,based upon a Blue n-21 vehicle from Blue-  n Robotics. The systems helps the Navy?s meet an urgent requirement to reliably detect and identify buried mines in high-clutter environments. The initial SMCM UUV System being acquired by the Navy includes a pair of Knife sh UUVs, along with launch and re- covery and support equipment, as well as the advanced sonar payload provided by the General Dynamics Team. The plan is for each of the littoral combat ship (LCS) mine countermea-sures (MCM) mission packages to contain one Knife sh sys- tem, with two of the lithium-ion battery-powered UUVs, as well as associated launch and recovery equipment, a support container, spare parts and support equipment. The system is designed for use with LCS, but it can also be used from ves- sels of opportunity. The Knife sh system recently passed its preliminary design review. LCS is a relatively small, fast, agile surface combatant de- signed to address anti-access in the littoral or coastal regions of the world. The ship can be recon gured with modularized mission packages for one of three focused mission: anti-sub-marine warfare, MIW and anti-submarine warfare. The ship itself?referred to as the seaframe?has core ca-pabilities including navigation; command, control, commu- nications, intelligence, surveillance, launching and retrieving boats, aircraft and unmanned vehicles, and weapons for self- defense. The LCS MIW Mission package will carry systems to search, identify, and neutralize mines in the water column from the near surface, bottom, and the water column. The LCS mission package is comprised of modularized mission systems and support equipment; mission specialists; and sup-port aircraft and crews. As systems are upgraded, or new ones become available, it will be possible to upgrade the mission package without making extensive modi cations to the ship. Knife sh employs a low-frequency broadband synthetic ap- erture side-scanning sonar to look for mines that are in the water column, or ?proud? mines that are resting on the sea  oor or partially buried. ?The Knife sh does not use acoustic imagery like most so- nars. The Knife sh Low Frequency Broadband (LFBB) sonar is better able to  nd buried mines and resolve mine contacts from non-mines in high clutter environments than acoustic imagery sonars,? said Capt. Duane Ashton, a program manag- er for unmanned maritime systems with the Program Execu- tive Of ce for the LCS. ?Knife sh provides capability that we don?t have with UUVs today,? Currently, the Knife sh must be recovered and its data pro- cessed and compared against the mine threat library is stored onboard LCS. The database allows Knife sh to identify just about any kind of mine-like object it could encounter, includ- ing virtually all known types of sea mines. Each re ection from an active transmission has unique characteristics that can be identi ed and classi ed. The system will compare any Subsea Defense KnifeFish Navy?s new UUV Knife Þ sh is a cutting-edge mine hunterBy Edward Lundquist November/December 20128 MTRMTR #9 (1-17).indd 8MTR #9 (1-17).indd 812/3/2012 12:26:10 PM12/3/2012 12:26:10 PM