
17.10.2016 Euronaval
Share
Share this article
Facebook
Twitter
Google Plus
Linkedin
At Euronaval 2016, Thales and 19 French SMEs are introducing the new AUSS concept (Autonomous Underwater & Surface System), the worlds first hybrid unmanned system capable of operating both above and below the surface. AUSS is designed for a broad range of civil and military roles, including intelligence gathering, maritime counter-terrorism, mine countermeasures and offshore platforms surveillance.
Key points
Thales unveils the worlds first hybrid unmanned naval system capable of operating both underwater and on the surface thanks to a dozen major innovations.
With its 360 agility and superior endurance, the AUSS system can perform many civil and military missions that were formerly considered impossible.
19 French SMEs have been working alongside Thales to develop the concept over the last three years.
Capitalising on 10 years' experience with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) deployed on mine countermeasures missions, Thales has developed a dozen high-tech innovations for the new AUSS system.
With these innovations, the system is capable of conducting an unprecedented range of civil and military missions that were previously impossible either very complex to perform with existing AUVs.
These missions include surveillance and naval intelligence gathering on the surface, undersea warfare (mine countermeasures) and maritime counter-terrorism. Civil missions include surveillance of underwater infrastructure such as offshore oil and gas installations.
Major innovations Designed for total manoeuvrability, AUSS can control its depth whilst moving in any direction and even when it is stationery. It is also exceptionally agile: if encountering threats or obstacles it can perform a 180 turn in less than 10 metres.
With this 360 agility, the vehicle can also stabilise a sensor mast deployed several metres above the surface, which is not possible with any other underwater vehicle of comparable size.
To meet the need for permanent surveillance, the Thales-designed AUSS offers superior endurance, making it possible to conduct missions lasting several weeks and spanning hundreds of kilometres.
AUSS employs latest-generation sensors to ensure that the information captured during its missions is of the highest quality and relevance.
With its 21 (53 cm) diameter hull, the system is designed to be launched and recovered from any type of naval vessel and from the shore. The system can be configured for different missions to optimise resource utilisation for customers.
With AUSS, Thales is bringing a completely new concept to the unmanned maritime systems market. We are sure that its unique set of operational capabilities will open up new horizons for civil as well as military organisations involved in maritime surveillance and protection. The launch of AUSS at Euronaval is a key milestone in a collective project that has been conducted over the last three years at the Thales site in Brest and in partnership with 19 SMEs. It marks the coming of age of the unmanned maritime systems industry in France.
Pierre-Eric Pommellet, SVP Defence Mission Systems at Thales Thales
Joint French effort AUSS is based on a systems approach that has been extensively proven by Thales over a number of years for ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) and undersea warfare operations.
The new concept is the result of a joint effort, with a total of 19 SMEs based in Brittany, Anjou and Paris taking part in the project alongside Thales for the last three years.
Sea trials have already been conducted on five occasions in 2016, confirming the systems ability to perform a broad range of missions and deploy the latest generation of sensors.
Euronaval 2016
Visit our dedicated blog!
Press Contact
Thales: Justine Degez
33 6 89 34 53 09
Send a message
Documents
PDF version - Thales and 19 French SMEs develop combined surface and underwater unmanned system
Appendix - List of French SMEs involved in the AUSS project
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...