EU picks Austrian drone to hunt submarines from the sea

An Austrian unmanned helicopter capable of carrying 350 kg (772 lb) of payload and staying airborne for 24 hours has been selected as the airborne platform for a European Union-funded project developing the next generation of submarine-hunting capability for European navies.

Schiebel announced June 1 that its CAMCOPTER S-300 will serve as the drone platform within SWORD, a 36-month research project led by TKMS ATLAS ELEKTRONIK under the European Defence Fund, aimed at building an integrated system that allows naval platforms to detect, track, classify, and neutralize submarines from a distance without putting ships directly over the threat.

The submarine threat that SWORD is designed to address has grown considerably more urgent over the past decade. Russia has modernized its submarine fleet extensively, deploying advanced boats that NATO navies track with considerable effort across the North Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Mediterranean. China’s submarine program has expanded in both numbers and capability. Both nations have demonstrated willingness to use submarines for intelligence collection and strategic positioning in ways that challenge the maritime security of European nations and their allies. Detecting a modern quiet submarine before it can fire, without exposing a surface ship to the risk of being the first vessel over its position, is one of the central problems that European naval planners are working to solve, and SWORD is explicitly aimed at that problem.

Stand-off anti-submarine warfare, the concept at the heart of the SWORD project, addresses the fundamental tension in submarine hunting between the need to get sensors close to the target and the danger that proximity creates for the platform carrying those sensors. A surface ship that maneuvers directly over a suspected submarine position to deploy sonar systems is also maneuvering into the engagement envelope of that submarine’s weapons. Deploying those sensors remotely, from a drone that can position them precisely without risking a crewed vessel, changes the risk equation fundamentally and extends the range at which a naval platform can prosecute a contact without direct exposure.

The CAMCOPTER S-300 brings specific capabilities to that mission that make it suitable for the SWORD concept in ways that smaller drones or fixed-wing platforms cannot match. Its maximum payload capacity of 350 kg (772 lb) is large enough to carry meaningful sonar equipment, multiple sonobuoys for deploying an acoustic detection field across a wide ocean area, or the combination of sensors needed for a complete anti-submarine warfare mission package. Its 24-hour maximum endurance allows it to maintain persistent coverage of a search area or a suspected contact without requiring frequent returns to the ship for refueling, which would interrupt the sensor coverage and potentially allow a submarine to reposition during the gap. The vertical takeoff and landing capability eliminates the runway requirement that fixed-wing drones impose, allowing the S-300 to operate from any ship with a flight deck, and the three-bladed foldable rotor system means the platform can be stowed in a ship’s hangar in the same confined space that helicopter-equipped vessels already manage.

Hans Georg Schiebel, chairman of the Schiebel Group, described what the SWORD selection represents for the platform’s future: “We are proud that the CAMCOPTER S-300 has been selected for this important European Defence initiative. SWORD is a great example of European cooperation in a highly relevant maritime defence domain. The selection of the S-300 highlights the platform’s potential to support future ASW concepts with a flexible, unmanned and operationally efficient capability.”

TKMS ATLAS ELEKTRONIK, which leads the SWORD consortium, is the naval systems division of thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, one of Europe’s largest submarine and naval systems manufacturers. Its involvement as consortium lead for an anti-submarine warfare project carries a certain irony that is also a practical advantage: the company that builds submarines for European navies also builds the systems those navies use to find and track submarines, which gives it a detailed understanding of the capabilities and vulnerabilities on both sides of the problem. The consortium draws on partners from across Europe, consistent with the European Defence Fund’s explicit objective of strengthening collaborative defense research and innovation within the EU rather than funding national programs that duplicate each other’s work.

The CAMCOPTER S-300 is the larger sibling of Schiebel’s established S-100 platform, which has been in service with multiple navies including the German, French, Italian, and UAE naval forces across a range of maritime surveillance and ISR missions. The S-300 uses the same ground control station as the S-100, which means operators familiar with the smaller platform can transition to the heavier system without relearning a fundamentally different control architecture, and logistics support for both platforms can be integrated at deployment sites where both operate. Schiebel maintains facilities in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt in Austria, Toulon in France, Manassas in Virginia, Abu Dhabi, and Shoalhaven in Australia, giving the platform a support footprint that spans the geography of its primary customer base.