The NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC) located in La Spezia, Italy participated in “Proud Manta 11” an Anti- Submarine Warfare (ASW) exercise that took place Southeast of Sicily in the Ionian Sea recently.

The centre successfully deployed three autonomous underwater vehicles, called gliders, from an Italian Navy vessel.

The exercise provides NATO Nations and the NURC a unique opportunity to experiment with new technologies and tactics in an operational environment. Operational experimentation helps to determine how new tools such as gliders can be used in actual operations and to assess subsequent improvements on war fighting capabilities.

This year was the first time the NURC successfully used the gliders to collect three-dimensional environmental data to support improved operational planning and decision-making tools. Temperature, salinity, and optical data are examples of information the glider gathers to aid in the understanding of environmental conditions that impact the operational effectiveness of submarines.

“Glider data has been exploited continuously in ocean prediction systems and anti-submarine warfare tactical decision aids to support and optimize operational planning and asset management.” said NURC’s Proud Manta 11 scientist-in-charge, Michael Rixen.

As opposed to traditional propelled autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), gliders use shifts in mass to steer, and changes in buoyancy to dive and surface, and can stay at-sea for very long periods of time. The three gliders offered a complete and real-time synthesis of oceanographic data of the Proud Manta exercise area, which helped participants mitigate the impact of environmental uncertainties on operations.

“We have developed sophisticated models and software to ensure effective glider mission planning and safe operations management during the exercise” said Michael Rixen.

The NURC plays an important role in the development of new capabilities for NATO and is central to the work of NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT).