ECA Adds Unmanned Rotorcraft to Belgian-Dutch Mine Hunter Program

ECA Group announced Wednesday it selected the SKELDAR V-200 Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial system (UAS) for integration with the Belgian and Dutch cooperative naval Mine Countermeasure (MCM) program.

The project involves building twelve mine hunters equipped with drone systems (Toolbox) to the Belgian and Dutch navies. The contract will span over ten years.

Six ships will be delivered to the Belgian navy and six to the Dutch navy; they will be equipped with a complete drones system (Toolbox) containing a total of more than a hundred underwater, surface and aerial drones entirely dedicated to mine hunting.

"Working across 12 new generation ships, this contract is the first to materialize the stand-off concept by using a Toolbox – a system composed of a variety of drones to be deployed by operators in order to fulfil autonomous mine clearance missions at sea," ECA Group said in a statement.

The project recently completed “Systems Functional Review” phase. After a design period of three years, Belgium Naval & Robotics will move on to the production phase of these ships and drone systems, with an initial delivery scheduled for 2024.

Naval Group is tasked with producing computer networks, electrical installations, propulsion or combat systems that will go on the ships; while the drones are manufactured by ECA Group.