The General Directorate of Nuclear and Technological Development of the Brazilian Navy, through the Center for Analysis of Naval Systems and the Navy Research Institute (IPQM),institutions subordinate to the Navy Technology Center in Rio de Janeiro (CTMRJ),carried out the first simple navigation (without the intervention of a helmsman) of the future Unmanned Surface Vehicle (VSNT), in the vicinity of Guanabara Bay.
This synergistic work, conceived by the CTMRJ, is the result of technological prospecting in the area of knowledge autonomous vehicles, which aims to promote technological research applied internally and externally to the Navy.
The IPQM, in collaboration with the company Embraer,participated in a research project, promoted by the Financier of Studies and Projects (Finep), focused on the area of naval data fusion. At the time, it acquired a research vessel of high technological complexity to fulfill specific tasks of mobile data collection in a maritime environment.
The objective is the development of a prototype, whose operation will be, in a first phase, remotely controlled and, later, autonomous. The purpose of this project is academic and didactic, serving to offer a floating laboratory to the universities and military organizations of the Naval Educational System (SEN), which use innovative technology in the area of Defense and complex operationalization in the field.