Specialists of Russia’s Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering have developed a conceptual design of a seaborne robotized system called Surrogat for holding naval exercises, the design bureau’s press office told TASS on Tuesday.
Currently negotiations are under way with the Navy on this project, the press office said.
Surrogat is equipped with a lithium-ion battery. This submarine imitator provides for up to 15-16 hours of naval exercises, reproducing an enemy submarine’s maneuvering, including at high speed, over this time.
The robot’s relatively large size (about 17 meters long) and the ability to carry towed sonar arrays for various applications will help realistically reproduce an enemy submarine’s physical fields – acoustic and electromagnetic, the Rubin design bureau said.
The imitator’s modular design allows changing its functionality: Surrogat will be able to imitate both a conventional and a nuclear-powered submarine, and also to carry out terrain mapping and reconnaissance. – Tass
How could the Russian Navy use Surrogat? The drone could be useful in wartime by hunting NATO hunter-killer submarines tasked with destroying Russia’s ballistic missile submarines. Surrogat could imitate a Borei-class submarine, with Russian attack submarines lying in wait in an ambush. Any submarine attacking it will give away its own position, allowing the Russian submarines to close in for the kill. – PM
