Nusrat-1915, Turkey’s first national mine hunting sonar, is aimed to be made available to the Naval Forces Command in the third quarter of this year.
Can Emre Bakım, General Manager of ARMELSAN, said that they have been operating for 10 years to end the foreign dependency of the Naval Forces in the field of underwater acoustic systems and especially sonar systems.
Stating that there are R&D projects they carry out within this framework and their output products, Bakım cited the Aras 2023 Diver Detection Sonar as an example to be used to protect Turkey’s largest military ship, TCG Anadolu (Multi-Purpose Amphibious Assault Ship-LHD), against the diver threat. Bakım noted that the sonar acceptance tests have been completed and will be seen in the field in the future.
Reminding that there is a current threat in the Turkish Straits due to the mines coming from Ukraine, Bakım explained that they started an R&D project 3 years ago against such threats. He said:
“Again, we have implemented the first national mine hunting sonar development project that will end the foreign dependency of the Navy. She takes her name from the ship Nusrat, which changed the fate of the First World War, Nusrat-1915. Our main goal here was to develop a dual-frequency, domestic, and nationally developed active sonar system that could detect anchored and bottom mines from a distance of approximately 1 kilometer and classify from 250 meters. At IDEF held at the end of 2021, we launched Nusrat-1915 with the presence of our Honorable President of Defense Industries, İsmail Demir. We are completing the final factory acceptance integration tests. Our Nusrat-1915 Mine Hunting Sonar, which will become a product that we can offer to our Navy as of the third quarter of this year.”
Pinpoint mine detection
Providing information on the usage concept of Nusrat-1915, Bakım said that the mine-hunting ship in front cleaned the risky channel and cleared the field for large platforms coming from behind. He noted:
“For example, while our LHD ship is transferred to an area if the area is not safe, the area is scanned at a certain speed with the Nusrat-1915 Sonar integrated into the front mine-hunting ship. If there is a dangerous object, from a distance of about 1 kilometer, the system classifies it as a mine or mine-like object. Then it switches to high frequency and tells the net result from a distance of about 250 meters. If it is a mine, the mine is either neutralized or properly removed with the systems in our mine-hunting ship, and the area is cleared. Other ships will arrive in the area we call this clean channel and reach their duty areas safely.”
Unmanned solutions for mine destruction are on the way
Reminding that there is a danger of “stray mines” in the Black Sea recently, Bakım said that mine hunting sonar was developed to detect mines before they break from their anchors.
Bakım pointed out that the mines collected by the SAT commandos were neutralized on the shore and said, “There is a chance that they can be neutralized with different methods within the scope of current technologies. For example, these mines can be detonated safely, without risking personnel, with the remote detonation mechanisms placed on remotely controlled underwater robots, or they can be taken to the shore with the arms in front of the robots without posing any danger. Some of our R&D activities are continuing in this regard.”
Sibling to Nusrat-1915 for unmanned sea vehicles
“There are serious demands from friendly and brotherly countries, especially in the Middle East and the Far East markets. At the end of the year, we expect an export soon, after completing the field tests regarding the product and carrying out the first field studies with our Force. We aim to have sonar on the market by the beginning of 2023. The world is evolving from large platforms to somewhat remotely controllable surface platforms. We are also carrying out preliminary studies for a different version of Nusrat-1915. This will be a smaller-sized hunting sonar that can be integrated into remote controlled surface vehicles. In this way, we will be able to identify and classify mines with a remotely controlled surface platform without risking large platforms.”
