The announcement follows the successful participation of the BlueWhale ASW in NATO’s RepMus exercise

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Atlas Elektronik (part of thyssenkrupp Marine Systems) have announced that the IAI BlueWhale ASW uncrewed submarine, together with the ATLAS ELEKTRONIK’s towed passive sonar took part in the NATO Dynamic Messanger exercise, which is taking place from 18 to 29 September near Troia, Portugal.

The operational experimentation exercise, the second of its kind, is focused on maritime unmanned systems and brings together military, industry, and academia to increase innovation and drive capability and interoperability development.

The announcement follows the successful participation of the submarine, equipped with the sonar, in the seventh NATO RepMuS (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping using Maritime Unmanned Systems) military exercise, which was held on 11 – 15 September in Sesimbra (Portugal) and led by the Portuguese Navy and NATO.

BlueWhale ASW, developed by one of IAI’s divisions – ELTA – is an autonomous submarine that can conduct some of the missions of crewed submarines without the need for operators at sea. It can operate for several weeks at a time with minimal costs and is capable of intelligence-gathering for both maritime and coastal targets, acoustic intelligence, and identifying the presence of naval mines.

The uncrewed submarine is equipped with a variety of sensors, including Atlas Elektronik’s towed array sonar and a telescopic mast with radar and electro-optical sensors. A transmitter developed by the company, deployed from a crewed surface vessel, enables the bistatic location and tracking of sea targets by BlueWhale ASW. The BlueWhale ASW is the first of its kind in the world.

Boaz Levy, IAI President and CEO, said: “The participation in the RepMus exercise together with all NATO countries brings to light the leadership of the aerospace industry in the maritime sector as well, and reveals a touch of the joint work with NATO countries, whose leading systems of the aerospace industry are integrated into the various security bodies in its member states.”

The two companies officially launched their joint development at the Undersea Defence Technology (UDT) Conference and Exhibition in Rostock, Germany, on 10 May.