Saab has been involved in submarine control systems since the 1970s when the first of Saab’s one-man “swim-by-wire” manoeuvring control systems was designed and installed in Royal Swedish Navy submarines.
The scope of this system was expanded with the inclusion of ship management and monitoring functions to be known as the SCS-500. When fitted to the Collins class submarine in the mid 1990s the ISCMMS, as the Royal Australian Navy called it, was responsible for manoeuvring, monitoring of the submarine’s engines, batteries, and platform control systems as well and trim, ballast and damage control. It had become a single system for integrated control of the entire submarine. The most recent developments have turned this into the SCS-500 Mk2 system; a new generation which takes full advantage of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware and software technologies. |
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The high levels of automation and the use of commercial components in the SCS-500 Mk 2 have met the highest challenge of modern submarines – reducing the cost of manning the vessels. The proof of this was in the Collins class submarine which managed to reduce the crew size from 64 in its predecessor to 42 in the new vessel.
This proven and fielded integrated ship control, management and monitoring system is suitable for submarines as well as surface combatants and is highly adaptable to different types of ships and platform equipment.