News

Singapore 2010: Venus on view

February 04, 2010

ST Electronics, part of ST Engineering, has taken the opportunity of the Singapore Air Show to exhibit one of the prototypes of its Venus USV for the first time.

The company first revealed details of the Venus USV at IMDEX 2009 and since then has rapidly progressed into the USV's prototyping and development phase.

Lee Fook Sun, president of ST Electronics, told Uvonline.com that the company had been able to get the first vessel into the water earlier than predicted and that since the first launch in July last year Venus has got several hundred hours of testing under its belt.

The company has several prototypes that it is using during the engineering evaluation. The USV on display at the air show, freshly scrubbed of sea debris, is a waterjet propelled variant while the company is also evaluating a version of Venus with twin screws. Lee says that both variants have plus points with the waterjet being more maneuverable while the twin screw variant has a higher top speed.

The current 10 meter version of Venus has a large payload capacity but Lee says that ST Electonics has designed the technology to be scalable to a larger 15m vessel if that was needed. The USV is expected to have an endurance of around eight hours and currently is fitted with a terrestrial datalink that allows it to operate at distances of around 10km. However, Lee says that distance could be boosted either with a more powerful terrestrial datalink or, eventually, with the integration of a satellite communications suite.

Lee says that there has been interest in Venus from a number of potential customers, some of whom have already been out to watch the system in operation. Lee believes that progress on Venus means that if a customer was to ask to purchase the system then ST Electronics would be able to deliver a fully operational system within a year.

Much of the interest in Venus so far has been to use the USV in an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) role. To facilitate that the current Venus has a Mini-T EO/IR sensor designed by ST Elop on a stabilised turret that can spot human-sized objects at up to 9000m in optimal daylight conditions and 3000m at night.

The Venus on display also has an integrated 5.56mm general purpose machine gun. Lee says that the company is looking at other options including a 0.5in naval gun. The company is also continuing to work on the concept of using the USV for mine detection and clearance.

Venus can be operated either from a shore based facility or from a mother ship. In the latter case Lee said that the control station needed to operate the system would easily fit into half a standard S 280 shelter.

By Darren Lake, Singapore