Great-depth enabling technologies

Expected Impact:The outcome should contribute to:

• Improvement in detection capabilities in SBW scenarios.
• Improvement of reaction capabilities in SBW scenarios.
• Improvement in EU technological autonomy for critical seabed infrastructure protection.
• Improvement of design of integrated defence systems for SBW scenarios operating at deep water depths.

Objective:Following the emergence of geopolitical instability in Europe and recent acts of sabotage on underwater critical infrastructures, it is evident that the vulnerability of assets such as underwater strategic pipelines, cables, communication backbones and offshore infrastructures, requires resolute measures to ensure their safety and resilience with a specific focus on Seabed Warfare (SBW).

Next generation silent submarines are an example of new forms of threats that need to be countered by effective response capabilities supporting the various defensive missions. Other examples of threats are unmanned vehicle (UxV) carriers that can target energy pipelines, spoofing data from the submerged communication backbones and cutting power energy cables.

International cooperation projects under the auspices of the EU (PESCO, EDF) and NATO (JCG MUS, Smart Defence) have already been initiated to counter these emerging threats.

However, further dedicated research focusing on the evaluation of potential technologies to cope with the above needs is necessary. In particular, this research must prioritise on delivering of technologies to EU defence capabilities that are expected to enable solutions for monitoring and defending underwater critical assets as well as responding to threats in deep waters (water having a depth greater than 200 metres) up to 6000 meters (m) in depth.

Specific objective

Due to a growing number of sabotage acts on critical underwater infrastructure, SBW has gained a very high level of interest for many EU navies. It is therefore necessary to be able to counter the various threat types operating in deep waters up to 6000 m in depth. Most of today's surveillance and reaction systems currently in service in Western navies have been developed to operate at limited depths, and not in the immediate proximity of the seabed. For many of these systems, extension to new operational requirements is hampered by several technological barriers. For example, with existing technologies the maximum operating depth of vehicles based on a pressure-resistant hull (such as traditional torpedoes) is insufficient for new and emerging operational scenarios.

An extensive and precise research activity, focused on "great-depth enabling technologies", could represent an important intermediate step towards an optimised and more efficient future SBW. The results of the research activity could facilitate and speed up the design of new systems specifically conceived and optimised for the operation in the new operational scenarios. At the same time, these new great-depth technologies could facilitate the adaptation of current systems to new operational requirements.

Proposals are expected to reach technology readiness level (TRL) 5.

Scope:The aim is to progress in undersea operations (e.g., SBW) in deep waters up to a depth of 6000 m, with a concept phase to study and evaluate technologies suitable for platforms and payloads to allow unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), detection systems, warning systems, communication systems, and weapon systems to perform deep water undersea missions (e.g., SBW missions), or even to be applied on fixed elements such as monitoring systems.

The proposals must identify defence use cases and justify the relevance of the proposed technologies to be addressed with respect to these use cases, taking into account the wider landscape of potential solutions for these use cases and the deployment costs.

Layered defensive depth must be formed and critical areas must be identified where monitoring and protection of the critical undersea infrastructure must be extended.

Types of activities

The following types of activities are eligible for this topic:

Types of activities

(art 10(3) EDF Regulation)

Eligible?

(a)

Activities that aim to create, underpin and improve knowledge, products and technologies, including disruptive technologies, which can achieve significant effects in the area of defence (generating knowledge)

Yes

(mandatory)

(b)

Activities that aim to increase interoperability and resilience, including secured production and exchange of data, to master critical defence technologies, to strengthen the security of supply or to enable the effective exploitation of results for defence products and technologies (integrating knowledge)

Yes

(optional)

(c)

Studies, such as feasibility studies to explore the feasibility of new or upgraded products, technologies, processes, services and solutions

Yes

(mandatory)

(d)

Design of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology as well as the definition of the technical specifications on which such design has been developed, including partial tests for risk reduction in an industrial or representative environment

Yes

(optional)

(e)

System prototyping of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology

No

(f)

Testing of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology

No

(g)

Qualification of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology

No

(h)

Certification of a defence product, tangible or intangible component or technology

No

(i)

Development of technologies or assets increasing efficiency across the life cycle of defence products and technologies

No

Accordingly, the proposals must cover at least the following tasks as part of mandatory activities:

• Generating Knowledge: • Creation of numeric models and simulation of components that embody new or improved technologies, which can demonstrate the element’s performance in an operational environment.
• Investigate and improve next-generation sensor technologies capable of high-resolution data collection in deep waters up to depths of 6000 m.
• Generate knowledge of multi-layered intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance of underwater threats.
• Investigate intelligent underwater sensor systems able to ad-hoc networking and contributing to shared situational awareness.
• Generate knowledge of neutralisation solutions for emerging underwater threats, such as UUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) and remotely operated vehicles (ROV)), including hard vs soft kill effectiveness analysis, preventing damage to the infrastructure itself.

• Studies: • Study to explore new or improved technologies specific for SBW and their application to products, including scouting of present technologies from the civilian market.
• Feasibility studies to identify and evaluate technologies suitable for deep water (up to a depth of 6000 m) operations, which should include a literature review and market analysis of existing technologies and their applications in underwater missions. The studies should define and analyse defence use cases relevant to deep water operations and evaluate the performance requirements for platforms and payloads operating at deep water depths. Additionally, the compatibility of existing UUVs with new technologies should be assessed.
• Methods and technologies for deep water launch and recovery from surface, in nominal and degraded/emergency conditions, including deep water installation and mooring.
• Methods and technologies of exploiting underwater fixed and/or deployable surveillance assets in conjunction with autonomous systems.
• Study of the dynamics of underwater explosion for the effectiveness of an explosive charge at deep water depths (up to 6000 m).

In addition, the proposals should cover the following tasks:

• Integrating Knowledge: • Energy storage and generation/harvesting at the sea surface and on the seabed, including study of the market and of possible deployment and installation methods, to enable persistent operation in the sea floor and water column, and to minimise maintenance requirements.
• Use of critical infrastructure self-diagnostics as part of surveillance.
• Enrich underwater situational awareness utilising data fusion of various sources, including open-source data repositories.

• Design: • Partial tests for risk reduction on specimens and/or demonstrators of technology in an industrial or representative environment.
• Conduct experimental research to partially test and reduce risks relevant to new materials and technologies designed to withstand high pressure and harsh underwater environments.
• Conduct research on finding novel approaches to utilise existing technologies in the critical underwater infrastructure as a source of surveillance information.
• Create and refine autonomous navigation algorithms for UUVs operating in deep waters (up to a depth of 6000 m).
• UxV energy autonomy solutions for improved performance in deep water operations, including selection of suitable cell technologies starting from Lithium Polymer (Li-Po) available on the market, test of long-term pressure effects on cell structure and electro-chemical characteristics, simulation models for cell degradation over time.
• Design of high demanding command and control (C2) requirements to manage surface dependency problems including connectivity, power generation, computational power, deployability and level of decisional autonomy of systems.
• Design an advanced Underwater IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) system for unmanned vehicles (UUVs and USVs) that accurately distinguishes, recognises and classifies between friendly, neutral, and hostile underwater entities to enhance situational awareness in all volume of water.

The proposals may also cover the following tasks:

• Generating Knowledge: • Explore and integrate state-of-the-art acoustic and non-acoustic sensors capable of underwater identification for IFF application.

• Design: • Conduct rigorous simulation and field testing in diverse deep-water environments (up to a depth of 6000m) to validate the IFF accuracy and reliability.

The proposals should substantiate synergies and complementarity with foreseen, ongoing or completed activities in the field of underwater warfare, notably those described in the call topic EDF-2023-DA-UWW-ASW on Unmanned Anti-Submarine and Seabed Warfare.

Functional requirements

The proposed product and technologies should meet the following functional requirements where applicable for the domains addressed:

• Marinisation and miniaturisation of critical components, including pressure-tolerant solutions.
• Autonomous accurate underwater navigation with poor or no positioning aid.
• Materials and solutions for underwater persistency over a long period of time, including underwater garages and integrated equipment/sensors for UUVs continuous health monitoring and preservation.
• Enhanced underwater communication in deep waters (up to a depth of 6000 m): spanning from the analysis of applicability of fibre optic link and sensors, seabed-to-seabed and seabed-to-surface networked data exchange, to ultra-low frequency acoustic propagation.