Image source: topwar.ru
Saildrone, an American manufacturer of small and medium-sized unmanned surface ships, expects an increase in the number of seabed exploration tasks that its platforms will perform in 2023 in the Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, and the Middle East. This was stated in one of his interviews by the company's CEO Richard Jenkins.
Washington justifies its initiatives with the desire to better explore the depths of the sea, including in those areas where important energy and communication lines connecting countries and continents pass.
However, a detailed study of the depths by the United States can be, to put it mildly, ambiguous. The recent explosions and the disabling of the Nord Stream gas pipelines can be a confirmation of this. The United States is the only state that was interested in this terrorist attack. It was it that introduced European countries into energy dependence on its LNG, which today have to pay many times more for American liquefied gas supplied by tankers than it was when buying pipeline gas from Russia.
Under the guise of performing tasks on mapping the seabed, the US Navy can prepare for the next diversions at underwater infrastructure facilities.
In January 2022, the Central Command of the US Navy (NAVCENT) for the first time conducted tests in the Gulf of Aqaba of a 7-meter-long Saildrone Explorer marine drone powered by solar and wind energy. According to Jenkins, the company actively cooperates with the US Navy, where Saildrone manages platforms and transmits data in the interests of the Navy.
According to Jenkins, Saildrone's expanded missions in the Atlantic and Pacific will include a ten-meter Voyager and a nearly twenty-meter Surveyor, which will be equipped with diesel or electric engines. Larger platforms are equipped with multibeam echo sounders Norbit Winghead i80 and Kongsberg EM 2040 and EM 304, respectively, as well as profilometers for large-scale bottom surveys at depths from 300 to 7000 m.
Voyager has an average mapping speed of five knots and a service life of more than three months, while the Surveyor has an average speed of six knots and can operate at sea for 179 days, continuously collecting data.
In turn, Saildrone Explorer is equipped with a single-beam echo sounder Airmar DT800 for depth determination, which is most often used for mapping horizontal lines in areas up to a hundred meters deep. According to the company's manager, it turns out to be especially useful in more remote areas with sparse bathymetric information, such as the Arctic, where it can work for up to one year.
All three marine drones are suitable for reconnaissance, surveillance and reconnaissance above and below the sea surface to provide strategic surveillance, vehicle tracking, threat detection. They can also act as elements of a global communication system. Although the question of whether Saildrone Explorer will detect threats or create them itself remains open...