India’s DRDO Develops Intelligent Underwater Vehicles for Mine-Detection

Indian DRDO’s Naval Science & Technological Laboratory (NSTL), has developed a new generation of Man-portable Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (MP-AUVs)   in collaboration with other DRDO labs or mine countermeasure missions.

The system comprises multiple AUVs equipped with Side Scan Sonar and under water Cameras as primary payloads for real-time detection & classification of Mine-Like Objects, a DRDO release said.

The onboard deep learning based target recognition algorithms enable autonomous classification of MLOs which significantly reduces the mission time.

 A robust underwater acoustic communication mechanism has been integrated to facilitate inter-AUV data exchange during mission execution ensuring enhanced situational awareness.

The recently concluded field trials have successfully validated salient system parameters and critical mission objectives.