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Abstract

The world' s oceans extend to an area of around xxxmillion km2 (circa xx% of the earth' s surface) with an average depth of x,xxxm ÀÛÂÃoe The perfect environment for unmanned solutions!

In the last 20 years, leading Navies have transitioned from a blue-water environment where the development of deep ocean unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) was emphasized, to a period where their major applications are in shallow/denied littoral areas, launched from off-shore platforms, to perform missions like mine warfare and Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR).

At the same time, governments in Europe, North America and Asia now realise the changing nature of threats and the need for a holistic approach to defence and homeland security, including coastline and shallow-water protection. In this context, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) greatly extend the reach and capability of Naval forces while substantially reducing casualties: “They promise increased access to areas the enemy would deny, and promise the means of denying areas to our enemies”.

The current estimated AUV market demand tends to be “almost” proportional to the active naval platforms in each region. The main drivers of this market include France, Germany, Italy, Norway, the UK, the US, Australia, South Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan. In revenues terms, the global Military AUV procurement and Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDTE) funding in 2005 amounted to USD$xxx million, with North America representing around xx% of the global AUV procurement & RDTE funding (circa USDxxx.x million). Both industry and defence stakeholders, expect a strong growth in the market after 2008, with the further integration of AUVs in routine missions and the introduction of miniaturized sensors and better communication solutions in AUV systems. Nevertheless, Frost & Sullivan does not expect the market to grow dramatically in revenue terms over the next ten years, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of just around x.x%, bringing the expected investment to around USD$xxx million - largely driven by the demand for light-weight and man-portable AUVs

For research projects, Frost & Sullivan utilizes tried and tested market intelligence techniques to provide structure to the research and an easy format to compare results across different segments and over time. This requires a large number of discussions and interviews with key stakeholders to constantly evaluate and validate data and assumptions.

• Stakeholders' Perception - Delphi method: The Delphi method is based on a structured process for collecting and distilling knowledge from a group of experts by means of a series of questionnaires interspersed with controlled opinion feedback.
• Stakeholders' Input Cross-Tabulations: Cross-tabulations provide a means of a deeper analysis into the data to examine relationships that might not be readily apparent when analyzing the total response. These are also used when systematic relationships between respondent characteristics or some other variable are discovered.
• Trends correlation: Trends correlations are used to measure and understand the strength of x.y.z. trends in relation to α.β.γ variables. These analysis aim to model expenditure forecasting data with a number of trends (directly related or not).
• Market potential Vs Maximum demand: Data in this research project is primarily extrapolated and measured from the demand side of the market. Whilst market potential gives us the theoretical measurement of the market, maximum demand enables us to forecast a more realistic procurement intentions. The research methodology is characterized by its unique combination of ‘bottom-up' and ‘top-down' approaches to platforms, systems, missions and capability. By taking this bottom-up approach to the analyses, based on current maritime operations and homeland security issues, we are able to understand nations and stakeholders' mission requirements and objective force structure to arrive at a forecast for future Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) systems procurement.

Table of Contents

• Research Overview

• Main Findings
• Research Methodology

• Introduction
• Military AUVs
• Homeland Security AUVs

• Contents
• The Military Client' s Influence
• Future Military Requirements
• Military AUV Market Demand
• Military AUVs - Market Forecasts

• Contents
• Key Market Challenges
• Investment and Shifts in the Homeland Security Market
• Drivers and Restraints
• Market Forecasts

• Contents
• Expected Technology Progression
• Business Dynamics