The threat of attacks on underwater critical infrastructure is growing, and Narluga allows it to be better protected,” emphasises Lt. Mar. Daniel Powarzyński, PhD from the Naval Academy, co-author of the project, which won the defence minister's competition for an unmanned maritime strategy for defence and safety purposes.
Difficult Was it?
Yeah. To National Defence Minister competition many excellent projects have been submitted. They afraid not only unmanned marine systems, but besides air and land systems. respective of them were created in Naval Academy. In the Department of Ship Automation, where I conduct classes, there was, for example, a flying Shad vehicle, a fast reconnaissance drone that can land on water to identify missing divers, underwater biomimetic vehicles with an intelligent Nerp detection and avoidance system, a Colav model, or a vehicle communicating underwater utilizing Whisper hydroacoustic devices. The judges truly had a choice.
And yet you won...
Not just me, it was teamwork. The leader of the task is Bartosz Łarzewski, who besides doctorates to AMW. I'm the task supervisor myself. I'm in the competition for the 3rd time. Before that, I was in teams dealing with underwater biomimetic vehicles. They mimic the behaviour of surviving organisms and are primarily utilized to conduct diagnosis. I besides participated in work on the hybrid submarine Reba. The projects were rewarded, but no of them won the first prize. It worked now.
Then what is Narluga?
In short, that's the name Unmanned marine system, which allows to monitor traffic on the waters of our interest – close offshore pipelines, cables, at ports entrances. Narluga collects hydroacoustic signatures of passing units, analyzes them, classifies them, and then radio-coded messages to the operator, informing him of the imminent threat. It happens in almost real time. Therefore, the operator immediately knows whether a linear ferry passes within the scope of the device, or whether a hard-to-identify submarine or a suspicious motorboat has appeared there. And if needed, he can respond in an appropriate way. For example, by alerting Formozysis combat syndrome Or the crew of the work ship. Narluga allows better protect critical infrastructure.
How is the strategy built? Is that a kind of submarine?
Nope. The main part of the strategy is the buoy placed underwater. erstwhile we designed it, we utilized many solutions related to neural networks. This part of the device collects the mentioned signatures. Above the large buoy is the second, the smaller. It extends beyond the water and is equipped with an antenna. It allows the transmission of a signal to the operator console, which is on the ship, in the boat or on the shore. The antenna scope is 20 km. The strategy itself is able to work for 16 days without interruption.
How far can it detect and identify ships, ships or boats?
It is hard to draw a rigid framework due to the fact that it depends on respective factors. First of all, from how loud the individual is. It is known that a passenger ferry or container ship can be heard from a greater distance, while the submarine moves almost silently. In addition, there are inactive hydrological conditions at a certain place and day. Anyway, the functionality of the strategy is high, which we have evidence of. due to the fact that Narluga isn't just a task anymore. Based on our idea, we constructed a device that was tested. It recorded acoustic signatures emitted by various submarines or motorboats, but besides Błotniak II, a manned submarine built by Gdynia constructor Mariusz Szymanski.
And then what?
In mid-December we received the main prize – 50 1000 PLN. We're inactive working on developing our idea. We're assuming that the hydrophones can be connected to a string. Imagine respective twelve devices deployed at sea all 2 miles. erstwhile the first of them “hears” an approaching unit, it forwards the information. The information, like a string, wanders between distributed systems and goes to the operator in a short time. In this way we could be supervised, for example, by an full offshore pipeline.
It's an invaluable advantage these days.
Exactly. The threat of hybrid activities in the Baltic Sea is increasing. Recently, we have had respective incidents involving harm to offshore critical infrastructure. civilian ships from China were breaking offshore telecommunications cables under unexplained circumstances. In Poland, too, there were 3 divers who went under the water close the Gdańsk Naftoport without the essential permissions. As they explained, they were looking for amber. This event was an impulse for us to start working on Narluga.
So erstwhile do we see her in the army?
After announcing the results of the competition, and then our visit to the Presidential Palace about the task became loud. We know that he has attracted interest in the military and not only due to the fact that any private companies have spoken to us. But as I said, Narluga was created for the military, or more specifically for the Navy. Now we are going to work on developing our concept. I hope that we will win and that in the close future the strategy will come into operation.
Narlug's task by the engineer Bartosz Łarzewski and Lieutenant Daniel Powarzyński received 1 of the first 2 awards in the category of unmanned reconnaissance systems. In the MON laura drone competition, they were besides awarded in terms of unmanned combat systems and unmanned support systems.
