Tag Archives: PSU

The Port of Gulfport implemented ‘continuous autonomous subsea surveillance’ on May 1

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There is no secret that the Navy has often used undersea surveillance sonar such as the German-made Cerberus anti-diver set for years in sensitive areas such as strategic ports, NSYs, and homeports.

For instance, more than 20 years ago:

050815-N-1722M-026 Pascagoula, Miss. (Aug 15, 2005) – Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit One Two (EODMU-12) Det 10 prepare to guide the Cerberus Swimmer Detection System into the water at Naval Station Pascagoula during the Gulf Coast Maritime Domain Awareness Initiative 2005. The initiative is being held at the Port of Pascagoula in cooperation with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, along with federal, state, and local agencies working together to enhance homeland security. U.S. Navy Photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Michael Moriatis (RELEASED)

Plus, there are regular harbor inspections and exercises by USCGR PSUs and USNR MIUWUs, not to mention state and local dive teams and UXO/EOD dets.

Now the ante has been quietly upped in the form of full-time AUSVs.

I’ve covered the Ocean Aero Triton, which is capable of sailing autonomously for 3 months on solar and wind power at speeds of up to 5 knots, several times in the past couple of years. I see them a lot as the company is based here in Gulfport.

Up she comes.

It seems the Triton is now also “on the job” in the port, basically making a baseline scan of the bottom and then repeating the grid to look for new items which would be interesting to take a closer look at to see if they are, well, an old refrigerator, or a sea mine.

 

Gulfport Harbor views

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Just some snaps taken while kayaking around Gulfport harbor down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The above shows the replica Ship Island Lighthouse at Jones Park built in 2011 after the original which was lost to a fire in 1972 (and a replica made by the SeaBees had been lost to Katrina). To the left are the gleaming white 87-foot Bollinger-built Maritime Protector-class cutters USCGC Moray (WPB-87331) and USCGC Tiger Shark (WPB-87359) next to CG Sta Gulfport, where you can see the nose of two 45-foot RB-Ms poking out from the boathouse. You can see Customs “Blue Lighting” interceptors to the far left.

A close-up of USCGC Moray (WPB-87331) and USCGC Tiger Shark (WPB-87359). The “color of the boathouse” in Gulfport is rust, btw.

Also buzzing around for the past couple of weeks, no doubt on summer camp, have been a number of USCG Transportable Port Security Boats, surely of the Kiln-based PSU 308. As noted by the USCG, “TPSBs serve to assist in anti-terrorism force protection and shore-side security capable of supporting port and waterway security anywhere the military operates.”

TPSB #32112, sans its normal M2 .50 cals

Of note, #32112 was formerly deployed to Gitmo with PSU 308 back in 2015.

Meet Seagull, Israel’s new USV robot boat

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seagull

Elbit Systems has a new 40-foot unmanned surface vehicle, the Seagull, which is designed to operate in pairs for either mine sweeping or sub busting. The idea is the first vehicle will have surveillance gear to find the sub or mine, while the second will carry either clearance gear (an ROV) or a anti-submarine torpedo to shove right up the sneaky U-boat’s kisser.

seagull 2 sea gull 3

From Elbit’s presser:

Drawing on world class know -how derived from generations of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) design, development and operation and its naval capabilities, Elbit Systems’ newest offering in the unmanned platform field is Seagull -an organic, modular, highly autonomous, multi-mission Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) system.

Seagull is a 12-meter USV with replaceable mission modules, with two vessels capable of being operated and controlled in concert using a single Mission Control System (MCS), from manned ships or from the shore.

The system provides unmanned end-to-end mine hunting operation taking the man out of the mine field. It provides mission planning, and on-line operation in known and unknown areas,including area survey, search, detection, classification, identification, neutralization and verification. It is equipped to search the entire water volume and operate underwater vehicles to identify and neutralize mines.

The idea is the two-boat pair can operate within 50-100 miles of the control station and remain at sea for 96 hours, covering a pretty large swath of littoral in the process while their operators sip coffee back in a trailer somewhere. A second set of boats can be kept ready to rotate out the first, making a persistent sea station a very possible endeavor.

This obviously has uses in a MIUWU or PSU augmentation or replacement.

Speaking of which, DARPA’s Sea Hunter–the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV is the U.S.’s version of this, and is mucho larger at some 132-feet long and is getting some love on social media as of late.