PASITHEA project General Assembly

PASITHEA, a defence Project funded by the European Defence Fund (EDF), aims to create a hybrid autonomous unmanned vehicle (HAUV) for maritime operations in maritime environments.

The project is a collaboration between different companies across the European Union. These companies are BALance Technology Consulting HmbH, A.S. Prote Marine Ltd., Academia Forţelor Aeriene “Henri Coandă” din Braşov, Beia Consult Intl., Fundación Andaluza para el Desarrollo Aeroespacial (CATEC), Maresco LTD, National Technical University of Athens and SignalGeneriX.

PASITHEA aims to develop a new design merging the well-known UAV’s and UUV’s technologies into a combined technology for a Hybrid Unmanned Vehicle, which can fly, hover in the air and sail, hover under the water and which has the ability to repeat air water trans-media motions. The HAUV will be able to be launched and recovered from platforms operated, and controlled by land, sea and air. The project includes the design of a high-level control, command, communication, and intelligence system. The carrier vessel can also be embedded with point-to-multipoint networking through the HAUV, meaning after it releases the HAUV, the system can communicate and relay with friendly forces operating nearby. The drone will be designed to return to the operator or to an indicated position using an advanced mission planning subsystem. The fact that the HAUV is released from underwater means it could not be expendable but returnable to the underwater mother carrier. The concept of the PASITHEA application and the derived relevant technologies have not been combinedly applied in the European defence sector previously.

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