A18-M

A18-M is Exail's mid-size autonomous underwater vehicle for mine and unexploded-ordnance detection, classification and localisation. The 4.5-metre vehicle carries the UMISAS interferometric synthetic-aperture sonar and can add multibeam, volume-search, camera or environmental sensors. Its navigation stack combines inertial navigation, Doppler velocity logging and GPS fixes at the surface, with obstacle avoidance and acoustic communications for subsea missions.

At a nominal three knots, A18-M can operate for up to 24 hours and survey 20 to 40 square kilometres, depending on mission conditions. Its sonar produces three-centimetre imagery across a swath of up to 360 metres, while onboard processing prepares data for transmission after resurfacing. The vehicle can deploy from shore, a mine-countermeasures ship or Exail's Inspector 125 uncrewed surface vessel and is included in European naval mine-warfare programmes.