As the threat from seafloor mines grows, naval forces are looking for agile, lightweight solutions that can adapt to different operating areas. The goal is to act at a distance, reducing exposure of ships and crews during mine-clearance missions.

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) address these changing operational needs. By relocating key functions such as surveillance, approach, and intervention, these systems open new possibilities for conducting mine warfare operations. For example, a mine countermeasure ROV can be controlled from a support vessel to approach a mine and enable remote neutralization.

Thales and the SME Arkeocean have launched a collaboration to develop a cost-effective underwater mine-hunting solution. This partnership brings together complementary strengths: Arkeocean delivers an innovative underwater vehicle capable of operating remotely or autonomously depending on the environment, while Thales provides its expertise in military warheads and an appropriate terminal effect integrated with the deployed system.

Developed by Arkeocean, the M Platform is a multi-mission underwater vehicle designed to support a wide range of operational needs. Its modular architecture, based on the integration of interchangeable mission payloads, offers strong operational flexibility. For mine countermeasures, Thales aims to extend the operational chain through a dedicated payload and integration into a broader process covering detecting, classifying, identifying, and neutralizing (DCLIN) mine threats.

For Arkeocean, this collaboration with Thales opens new prospects for the vehicle in the mine countermeasures domain, highlighting one of the many applications enabled by its modular design and ability to include advanced technologies.

Thales’ S-HEB warhead from the BlueSliver family, developed at the Thales site in France (in La Ferté Saint-Aubin), is designed to neutralise mines effectively, while ensuring a high level of user safety. BlueSliver warheads are natively designed to be integrated across different compatible platforms and to deliver effects tailored to the targeted threats.

Thales demonstrates once again its ability to evolve its warhead expertise toward new naval operations, leveraging the Expeditionary PathMaster open-architecture approach and working alongside specialists in underwater vehicle systems.