A paradigm shift of interoperable submarine rescue operations: the usage of JANUS during the Dynamic Monarch 2017 exercise

Abstract

The NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) participated for the first time in the Dynamic Monarch submarine rescue exercise, bringing to the operational players a new interoperable digital underwater acoustic communications capability introduced by JANUS. Currently, communications during rescue operations are performed solely with the analogue underwater telephone and the usage of the phonetic codes (alpha to zulu). This has the clear problem of needing an operator (that may be required for other equally critical tasks) to handle the communications on the submarine side. Stress and phonetic biases may also play a role in the success of the underwater telephone communications. Interoperable digital underwater communication may undoubtedly render submarine escape and rescue more effective, but above all it may introduce a whole new way of conducting operations. Digital underwater communications can, in fact, enable machine-to-machine interaction (not viable with analogue underwater telephone) and open the way for the introduction of networked underwater unmanned systems. This paper provides an overview of the activities that led to the participation of CMRE in the submarine rescue exercise Dynamic Monarch 2017. We present the key conclusions taken throughout the process that started in 2016 and culminated with the participation in the exercise, in September 2017.