Gouveia e Melo and we will carry them out at sea. Portugal is at the forefront of the ″technological guerrilla″
Wine and five countries and marine, military, scientific and national and international testers in a total of participants – join in Portugal for respective 2000 total participants of half companies, underwater and aerial.
They made their home for three weeks, the approximately five hectares on the Troia peninsula, where the Navy Operational Experimentation Center (CEOM).
Through the waters of the Sado, many naval units and 17 ships from various countries. The daring to innovate, curiosity, challenges were permanent and competition, to be sure, was healthy.
It was the largest international exercise by the Navy – in partnership with the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto that started 14 years ago – to experiment with the capabilities of the new generation of unmanned marine systems, where academia, industry and the military collaborated in the testing and development of equipment.
THE REPMUS (Robotic Experimentation and Augmented Prototyping by Unmanned Marine Systems) gained new momentum this year, after NATO certified this space as one of the European testing centers and our country has integrated the NATO accelerated innovation network – these stimulated welcome start-ups that work there more quickly, as their technological solutions for military applications.
the british royal navy British scientists had an exercise in this one, but also from the USA. United States Navy and some of the biggest North American companies and Holland had one of the biggest entourages, with its Koninklijke Marine.
Gain technological superiority
We docked at the dock, after 15 minutes accelerating on a Maritime Police launch, with the Armada Chief of Staff (CEMA), the Admiral Gouveia e Melo.
He was happy and didn’t hide it. A sun-stained face, a smile from ear to ear, he was also received with equal predisposition by the military who know that it is the “father” of all this fuss.
We traveled by car from Cascais, where he had been submerged in Arpão in a demonstration of the capabilities of this submarinewith the presence of Minister of National Defense, Helena Carreiras.
“What we do here is technological guerrilla warfare, asymmetrical attacks against a symmetrical industry. The piranha against the whale. The entire Navy, by doing this, starts to have a new attitude towards challenges.
For, sometimes, sometimes with phone calls, we are on our way to this moment: “What we do here is the technological guerrilla, asymmetric attacks against a symmetrical industry. ONE piranha against the whale. The entire Navy, by doing this, starts to have a new attitude towards the challenges. We often have a lot to test, to test things, to fail. Failure can be uncontrollably bad. Controllable, up-to-date form is the best way to evolve.”
The Admiral pointed out that “this whole plan gains technological superiority through new mechanisms instead of old ones, which are more brute force. As we are small, we cannot apply brute force because we do not have these capabilities. We have to apply intelligent force. The whole concept of the Navy that I envision is to create intelligent force. What are sets here are all sets of surface, underwater and aerial drones in an environment of technology companies, students and university, which work together to improve our capabilities and qualities.”
Gouveia and vanguard Melo is convinced that Marinha “is in the forefront of this ecosystem, which provides a field of technological development for the national industry that may come, in the future, to reduce acquisition costs of military equipment. We participate in the knowledge of its value, but we also develop it nationally at more controlled costs and adapt equipment, we have an industry that gains scale and value. We have to make the country a true industrial revolution to start producing things of greater value. The more knowledge we incorporate into products, the more value we will have. We will be more productive, more efficient and improve the national economy”.
A disruptive and persistent team
On the “technological campus, we have as a guide the director, a national captain of sea and war, who goes to the most advanced space and two executivesM Vendandos, nationals, the most advanced space in the warM, CEO, who goes to the most advanced space, and some executives M. There is a remote-controlled speedboat (photo on the side) as a result of a timely “recycling”.
“This boat was going, but in 20 days it was shot down and roboticized. We are going to do the same to two others. They can do the same to two. They can do patrols, surveillance, reconnaissance”, underline this officer.
in the tent of Cell for Operational Experimentation of Unmanned Vehicles (CEOV) are two “hexacopters”, with six propellers each, whose capabilities, still in testing, cannot be revealed.
We passed by an INESC-TEC underwater robot, by an English submarine, by a brigade” of Dutch drones that work in a “swarm”, by the command room where “more than 500 experiments were coordinated”, by the radar tower with a view to the test track and to the river, whose waters are also equipped for technological experiments.
Paulo Gonçalves recalls that this area is opened by the recently launched, also by the Navy, “Technological Free Zone”– safe space for equipment testing – with more than 2300 square kilometersincluding the entire maritime area, “where the depth reaches more than three kilometers a short distance from the coast, a singularity that is very important for technological development”.
In the middle of the conversation, one of them takes off, close to us. “autogyro” – a mini plane that looks like a toy. Gouveia e Melo goes aboard and waves from above.
“Today was an excellent day, one that makes me feel fulfilled. I did the full thing: I submerged, flew and sailed to the surface!”
After a few turns, watched below, in the waters, by semi-rigid with soldiers ready to act in case of any incident, land and come to meet us. “Today was an excellent day, one that makes me feel fulfilled. I did the full thing: I submerged, flew and sailed to the surface!”
When he joins the CEOV team, the more “disruptive” past (one of Gouveia e Melo’s favorite words, very useful in the strategic strategy for the Navy that he presented in February), the complicity with this team stands out.
There, more than CEMA, who interacts is “the” Gouveia e Melo, the military man who likes to “think outside the box and do something beyond Taprobana”as he confessed to us on the trip.
“These kids have a capacity for commonality, persistence, they don’t give up. chose the navywear the shirt and are very happy to be in an exercise of this dimension and manage to match the most powerful. We are very proud”, he assures the DN.