Countermine Operations in Very Shallow Water and Surf Zone: The Role of Bottom Crawlers

摘要

In littoral warfare, strategic, operational and tactical mobility is an obvious advantage to naval forces that rely on unobstructed sea lanes. Naval mines can diminish or deny this advantage by reducing freedom of maneuverability and preventing naval forces from controlling or shaping the battlefield. In the Surf Zone (SZ) region, small autonomous crawling robots are being developed by the Office of Naval Research to perform mine hunting missions in support of the Mine Countermeasures (MCM) task force.