Couach Unveils the Magellan its First Surface Drone

Couach announces the development of the MAGELLAN, the first surface drone of the shipyard. With a length of six meters and a displacement between 1,000 and 1,200 kilograms, the MAGELLAN is the latest addition to the Couach Shipyard's R&D department, in order to provide a systemic response to the needs expressed by its customers.




The EURONAVAL 2022 exhibition demonstrates, once again, that the sea is becoming an area of hybrid conflict, between high and low intensity, for navies around the world. These navies are seeking to equip themselves with discrete and enduring platforms for intelligence, identification and surveillance.

The MAGELLAN USV is therefore designed to perform a variety of missions at sea in the future: electronic warfare, information gathering, target detection and identification, surface and underwater surveillance and reconnaissance.

To carry out its missions, the MAGELLAN is currently being developed by Couach on three main pillars: technological modularity, excellence of marine performance, and practicality of deployment.

Its composite, carbon and Kevlar hull makes it robust and natively adapted to a defense use. The expertise of the Couach Shipyard in terms of marine quality, which no longer needs to be demonstrated, makes the MAGELLAN a platform capable of coping with restrictive sea states. The drone has a high stability and has been designed to be self-righting.

Its innovative diesel and electric propulsion is based on the use of a 13 Kw microturbine allowing it to navigate for 5 days at a speed of 6 knots, with a reduced noise signature to ensure its discretion.



By design, the MAGELLAN has been conceived as a modular technological platform, able to carry a large payload - more than 500 liters - for the integration of the equipment chosen by the end user. The drone can be equipped with modules, allowing for example the deployment of acoustic buoys or ESM type modules.

The USV package includes a mission planning module, a control center - on land or onboard - which ensures mission monitoring for its user.

Finally, the design of the MAGELLAN USV has been optimized by the R&D department of Chantier Naval Couach in order to maximize its practicality for the user.

With a length of 6 meters and a width of 1.3 meters, and a displacement of between 1,000 and 1,200 kg, the MAGELLAN was designed to be easily transported in a container. The drone is easily recoverable without assistance and without deploying a recovery system thanks to its retractable mast and its lifting hook.



Already recognized for its expertise in the construction of composite ships, the Couach Shipyard is now applying its knowledge for the first time in the field of drones with the MAGELLAN. This development is the result of the highly technological turn taken by Couach, following the creation of the shipyard's R&D department, which has already led to a considerable increase in skills in system integration on its ships.

Location: France