The Indian Ministry of Defence has issued a request for information (RFI) for simulators that can emulate the country's submarine rescue systems.
More specifically, the ministry is procuring two sets of simulators that can prepare Indian Navy personnel for the service's submarine rescue vessel (SRV) and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) systems, according to the RFI that was published in January 2022.
The SRV simulator should be able to replicate rolling and pitching motions of the actual vehicle and feature the same “look, feel, functionalities, man-machine interface, and response time” to the Indian Navy's deep-submergence rescue vehicle (DSRV).
In addition to this, the simulators must be equipped with an instructor station and loaded with courseware and trainee evaluation package that can assess the performance of the trainees. The simulators must be able to replicate common operations related to submarine rescue missions including pre- and post-dive procedures, the RFI indicates.
In addition, the simulators must be able to emulate various environmental variables at sea, including zero-visibility conditions, waves of up to sea state 4, and underwater currents of up to 2.5 kt within a radius of 200 m from the mothership.
The Indian Navy operates two ‘flyaway' submarine rescue systems that were supplied by UK-based subsea engineering, operations, and services group JFD. The systems were delivered in 2018 and 2019 and are based at the Indian Navy's submarine rescue units in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam, respectively.
Each system comprises a DSAR-650L free-swimming DSRV, a launch and recovery system (LARS) for the DSRV, a Transfer Under Pressure (TUP) system, an SMD Atom ROV, and an EdgeTech 4200 series towed side scan sonar. Each DSRV is operated by a three-member crew and is capable of rescuing up to 14 distressed submariners per sortie.
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