Thales Develops Drone-based Anti-Mine Ops Centre for French Navy

The French defence procurement agency (DGA) placed an order with Thales for an Expeditionary Portable Operations Centre (e-POC) to meet the French Navy's new requirement for a drone-based mine countermeasures capability.

The system was developed in less than six months and has been accepted by the DGA after completing sea trials and delivered to the French Navy. The e-POC demonstrator enables naval forces to conduct mine countermeasures missions quickly and efficiently using only unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).

Thales’ e-POC demonstrator is an easily transportable solution that will enable the French Navy to deploy underwater drones for mine countermeasures missions in any theatre of operations.

It will provide a flexible mission management capability from outside the zone of operations, helping to keep naval personnel out of harm's way.

The e-POC demonstrator runs software developed for the M-Cube1 and MiMap2 systems on a single computer equipped with three control screens to plan, execute and analyse missions requiring the simultaneous deployment of up to three UUVs.

The system can be set up on board a ship or at a shore station, and is small enough to fit into just six transport cases for deployment into the theatre of operations. The transport cases are stowed inside the UUV container to streamline logistics and boost mission effectiveness.

" The e-POC solution is designed for rapid deployment into any theatre of operations, making a valuable contribution to future mine countermeasures missions and helping to guarantee the safety of naval personnel." Gwendoline Blandin-Roger, Vice-President Underwater Systems, Thales.