The U.S. Navy has improved the reliability of its remote mine-hunting
system for the Littoral Combat Ship through a series of tests off the
coast of Palm Beach, Fla., service officials said.
The so-called
Remote Minehunting System, or RMS, consists of a semi-submersible with
the AN/AQS-20A variable depth sonar and is designed to locate mines in
shallow and deep water, officials said.
“Getting
through this was really important to the whole progression of the
program and efforts to get the system fielded to the fleet,” Steve Lose,
who manages the program for the Navy, said in an interview. “The big
plus is what RMS is going to bring to the mission and keep sailors and
ships out of the mine field.”
The reliability testing decreased
the average time the system failed between missions, thus increasing the
effectiveness of the technology, Lose said.
The Navy adopted a
test-fix-test approach wherein the system was put through a series of
operationally-relevant scenarios designed to push the envelope of its
electronic, hydraulic and navigational components, Lose said.
“The
end product was an engineering change proposal – a design change
whereby a problem is corrected,” he said. “We looked at previously
identified failure modes, tested, did an analysis, then fixed the design
for reliability.”
The evaluations led to improvements in
hydraulic systems that help the semi-submersible turn, remain stable and
change depth,” Lose said. The device is propelled by a standard diesel
engine, however, hydraulic systems are needed for control, Lose said.
“We improved the overall capacity of the hydraulic system,” he said. “The vehicle is heavily dependent upon hydraulics.”
The
testing, conducted by the maker of the mine-hunting system, Lockheed
Martin Corp., included Navy sailors and engineers, as well as
independent technical experts tasked with identifying and correcting
problems on the system, Lose said.
Lockheed received a $52.9
million contract in May from the Navy to integrate the system into the
LCS mine countermeasures mission package on both Lockheed’s Freedom ship
and Austal’s Independence, company officials said.
Overall, the
system completed more than 850 hours of testing during 47 missions over a
four-month period, assessments which included exercises utilizing the
AN/AQS-20A sonar to locate debris and “mock” mines on ocean floor.
“We
attempted to operationally simulate how it will operate from the LCS,
where you can program missions,” Lose said. Future tests will involve
testing the remote mine-hunting system in an actual mine field, he said.
The sonar is lowered to additional depth beneath the surface through use of a long cable tethered to the submersible, Lose said.
The
reliability testing also involved simulated conflict scenarios and took
place off the shores of a Lockheed Martin facility at Riviera Beach,
Fla., according to Steve Froelich, who manages the system for the
contractor.
“We got together with some design reviewers and
identified the need to design a fix for anything that had caused the
system to interrupt the mission,” he said.
Following the daily
exercises, data from the simulated mine-hunting scenarios was loaded
onto a data recorder that compiled such information as temperature,
pressure, revolutions per minute and sonar levels, Froelich added.
The
testing also examined the navigational system of the submersible, which
uses what’s called a semi-autonomous capability, meaning the vessel can
travel along a path or trajectory that is pre-programmed by computers
using global positioning system waypoint technology, Froelich said.
The
remote mine-hunting system is an key part of the ship’s mine
counter-measures mission package, a so-called modular suite of
technologies engineered to work together to defend the vessel against
explosive devices placed in water.
Under its deal with the Navy,
Lockheed will ultimately upgrade semi-submersible on as many as 10 ships
and integrate communications systems designed to enable sailors to
operate two of the submersibles at the same time, Lockheed officials
said.
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