AEVEX, Solana Beach. Calif., has landed two U.S. Navy contracts worth a combined $41.6 million to expand autonomous mine countermeasures capabilities across its fleet of small unmanned surface vessels.
The awards cover production, fielding, and operation of AEVEX’s SightGlass and Fisher systems, which are designed to find, identify, and neutralize maritime mines while keeping personnel farther from the threat.
A $15.6 million contract covers SightGlass, a modular mine-hunting and identification payload designed for the Navy’s existing Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft fleet as well as AEVEX’s newer Lynx and next-generation Chaser small unmanned surface vessels.
A second contract worth $26 million covers Fisher, a modular payload designed to reacquire and neutralize mines. Fisher is intended for the Lynx and Chaser platforms and was developed in partnership with VideoRay.
AEVEX said Lynx vessels equipped with the two systems can work together, with SightGlass locating and identifying mines and Fisher handling reacquisition and neutralization.
“Mines are cheap to deploy but expensive to clear, and the threat is growing,” said Bob Pudney, senior vice president of AEVEX Maritime Systems. “DIU asked industry to prove it could change that equation, and our team did it on the water, not just on paper.”
The contracts follow testing conducted through the Defense Innovation Unit’s Mine Countermeasures Modernization Prize Challenge, a Navy-backed effort aimed at rapidly fielding commercial technology for mine detection and neutralization.
The challenge focused on near-surface mine neutralization, bottom mine detection, and bottom mine neutralization, with systems evaluated through competitive on-water testing.
AEVEX’s Maritime Systems division was formed after the company completed its acquisition of BlackSea Technologies in September. BlackSea was among the companies recognized by the Navy and DIU following the mine countermeasures challenge.
The company said it has delivered 325 GARC vessels to the Navy, which have accumulated more than 25,000 hours of on-water operations.
The Navy describes GARC as a small unmanned surface vessel used to experiment with autonomous systems, payloads, and new operational concepts.
The latest awards expand that fleet’s role in mine warfare while also moving the capability onto AEVEX’s newer Lynx and Chaser platforms.
