UK contracts Thales for MCM remote command centres

A picture of Thales' mine-countermeasures command centre in operation. (Thales)

The UK Ministry of Defence's (MoD's) Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) procurement organisation has contracted Thales to design, develop, and deliver remote command centres (RCCs) for the Royal Navy (RN) as part of its mine-countermeasures (MCM) capability, according to Thales' 29 December press release.

The initial GBP10 million (USD13.5 million) phase of the programme includes scope to expand to GBP100 million as part of the UK government's vision for a “Hybrid Navy” and the RN's MCM mission systems integration, according to the release.

Thales' M-Cube mission management system for mine countermeasures is set to be an important component of the RCC. M-Cube includes Thales' analysis software Mine intelligence Mapping system (MiMap/Mi-Map), which has a set of functions ranging from sonar image display and mapping to contact analysis and management, according to Janes C4ISR & Mission Systems: Maritime . Mi-Map collates information generated by towed sonar systems or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and provides an environmental picture for detection, classification, and localisation of threats. A modelling and simulation platform for mission planning called Sonia uses data entered into M-Cube and provides simulation of likely mission outcomes.

As per Thales' release, Mi-Map, which will be at “the heart of the remote command centre”, features artificial intelligence (AI)-powered automatic target recognition for filtering and refining raw data. The AI function was developed with support from Thales AI accelerator cortAIx.

The RCC is intended to integrate platforms, systems, and subsystems allowing the RN to work with AUVs. Thales will work with programme partners to initially deliver a twin-containerised capability, according to the release.

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