MOSCOW, September 19. /TASS/. The Murmansk Arctic University has patented a ship tower that places and launches multicopters on a fiber-optic cable to protect the ship from attacks by unmanned boats, said a document TASS has at its disposal.
It says that one of the main problems for a ship in combat operations and on duty is to ensure its survivability in the absence of protection from unmanned boats.
The university has created a special tower installed on the deck of the ship. In its frontal part, there are rows of openings equipped with airtight covers that open from top to bottom. Inside the tower, on the floors corresponding to the rows of openings, belt conveyors oriented into these openings are placed. The conveyors have pins for attaching fiber-optic drones, which continue to operate in electronic warfare conditions.
"A promising area is the use of attack drones, whose stability in electronic warfare is ensured by cable control. In turn, it is the ship that has the maximum concentration of electronic warfare assets and, using them on unmanned boats, and a simultaneous use of its electronic assets, will negate the control of attack UAVs. This determines the prospect of using combat multicopters with remote control systems via fiber-optic cable on ships. The increased quality of information transmitted over fiber-optic cables, when used in marine environments, provides improved control accuracy for combat multicopters," the developers said.
According to the patent, when approaching unmanned boats are detected, the necessary number of openings lift their covers. Next, fiber-optic drones are pushed out of the tower onto the covers with the help of belt conveyors, after which they are launched. It says that, if necessary, new multicopters are put forward to replace the launched ones, until the charged reserve of belt conveyors or clips is exhausted.