Northrop prepares new minesweeping technology

With rising tensions between the United States and Iran raising worries once again about mines, it is no surprise that the Navy is actively looking for new minesweeping capabilities. Consider as an example Northrop Grumman’s new laser-based approach, which has the unique capability to both detect and destroy explosives. Mounted on an MH-60S helicopter traveling as fast as sixty knots, it first passes over an area to collect data using a blue-green laser firing “hundreds of pulses per second. ” As the laser is fired into the water, cameras capture the reflections, which are then transferred to on-ship computers for analysis. It requires “massive computing” the company claims. Once the mines are identified, it takes four hours to reconfigure the system into attack mode. Returning to the scene, the same type of laser is used to locate the offending mines and guide the 30-millimeter gun used to destoy them. According to Defense News, the combined systems are effective to depths as far as forty feet.

Northrop earned $35.7 million to to develop the two pods. Once in production, the pods should cost about $4-5 million a piece, with the Navy planning to buy forty-five by 2018.