The Italian Navy has assigned its mainstay shipbuilder Fincantieri to design warships that can adapt to deploy airborne, surface and undersea drones.
“It means looking at how best to handle storage, maintenance and loading ammunition,” Capt. Gianluca Marcilli, head of technology innovation within the Navy General Staff’s General Space and Innovation Office, told Defense News.
The task is an offshoot of the military service’s new research project on drone swarms. The project, dubbed “Sciamano Drone Carrier,” was unveiled by Marcilli at the Sea Drone Tech Summit in Rome on Tuesday.
The research study focused on how combat vessels, either planned or being built, can be equipped with sensors and combat management systems, so they can host and use drone swarms for various activities, such as enemy interception, search and rescue, and intelligence and surveillance. It proposed four to six unmanned surface vehicles, such as Fincantieri’s SAND, a USV with a 72-hour flight capability at eight knots. It recommended up to six uncrewed systems as the typical airborne component, using Leonardo’s 200-kilo rotary drone AWHERO as a reference.
Marcilli said the study also put forward the concept of a vessel that can host between six and 10 undersea drones for launching through apertures in the hull instead of a crane.
In June, Fincantieri said it would work with Leonardo and Saipem to deliver the Italian Navy’s requirements for advanced sub-sea drone technologies.