During the United Kingdom’s Unmanned Warrior Exercise this month, Northrop Grumman successfully tested its AQS-24B mine hunting system.

It was the first time that the system had been deployed from an unmanned surface vehicle in U.K. waters, as it was launched, towed and recovered from the Atlas Elektronik UK’s ARCIMS USV.

“Our team’s demonstration at Unmanned Warrior proves that unmanned systems combined with the right payloads can perform high-speed mine countermeasures tasks, greatly reducing the mine clearance timeline while keeping naval personnel out of harm’s way,” said Alan Lytle, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems undersea systems vice president, via Naval-Technology.com.

“The USV/AQS-24B combination provides a highly effective and affordable mine countermeasure solution for our allies and theatre security partners.”

Among many features, the AQS-24B includes the world’s first operational high-speed synthetic aperture sonar (HSSAS), and an optical laser line scan sensor. It also includes improved image resolution, high speed operation and object detection and classification.

According to the company website, the AQS-24B is the world’s “only deployed and operationally proven, high-speed airborne mine hunting system.”

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