HAVELSAN has unveiled its new AVISTA underwater unmanned maritime vehicle (UMV) for the first time at the “TEKNOFEST Mavi Vatan” technology festival in Türkiye.
“Polygonjournal” reports, citing HAVELSAN, that the company, which has gained significant capabilities in the field of autonomous UMVs through its SANCAR and RAFNAR projects, is carrying out the new AVISTA research and development (R&D) project using its own resources.
HAVELSAN stated that through the AVISTA project, it aims to develop national capabilities for precise positioning in underwater environments where GNSS signals are unavailable, three-dimensional underwater mapping, inspection of the underwater sections of ship hulls, protection of critical underwater infrastructure, and integrated security capabilities.
Considering the high cost of underwater sensors and customs restrictions affecting their procurement, the AVISTA project focuses on developing algorithms that enhance the capabilities of underwater platforms by using affordable and readily available sensors. The technologies developed under the project will also be directly incorporated into HAVELSAN’s ÇAKA project, a hybrid unmanned maritime vehicle (H-UMV) capable of diving.
HAVELSAN is using a six-degree-of-freedom remotely operated vehicle (ROV) as a development and testing platform for AVISTA. The company is developing the AVISTA project based on platform-independent algorithms and a software architecture. This is intended to enable AVISTA to be integrated into various underwater unmanned vehicles in the future and to operate in an integrated manner with the ADVENT combat management system.
Although AVISTA is currently an R&D project, its existing capabilities could enable it to be used in underwater search-and-rescue operations, forensic investigations, underwater inspections of infrastructure and energy facilities, as well as port and facility security.
Sea trials of the AVISTA unmanned maritime vehicle are planned to begin in the near future. The capabilities developed under the project will contribute at various levels to the anti-submarine warfare (ASW), surface warfare, mine warfare, and seabed warfare capabilities of the ADVENT MÜREN combat management system.
HAVELSAN aims to bring new products and solutions in the field of underwater technologies to an operationally ready state during 2027.
