At the 2025 Pakistan International Maritime Expo and Conference (PIMEC 2025), Pakistani defence industry firms showcased the unmanned aerial system (UAS), unmanned surface vehicle (USV) and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) designs they are currently developing.
These included the Stingray Technologies USV, as well as the Beyond Koncept “Muhassir” USV and “Israr” AUV. While marketed by seemingly private companies, each of these platforms appears to be in development at one of the National Engineering and Scientific Commission’s (NESCOM) entities.
NESCOM is the leading state-owned defence research, development, and production entity, with an ecosystem of subsidiaries specializing in different domains. One can see many NESCOM solutions in the product catalogues of Stingray Technologies and Beyond Koncept, thus revealing their actual nature as commercial arms of their respective NESCOM bureaus.
Global Industrial and Defence Solutions (GIDS), which generally works as the sales and marketing hub of NESCOM, also revealed a maritime variant of its forthcoming Shahpar III UAS. Interestingly, the concept videos of the maritime variant showcase a redesigned front fuselage alongside a series of specialized equipment, including sonobuoys, Eghraaq lightweight torpedoes, a synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and electronic and communications intelligence (ELINT/COMINT) suites.
Overall, the fact that no less than four different unmanned platforms are in development specifically for maritime purposes – i.e., three combat-capable USVs, at least one unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV)/AUV, and medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAS – highlights how much more emphasis the Pakistan Navy (PN) is placing on uncrewed systems for its long-term procurement roadmap.
In July, the PN leadership stated that it will pursue uncrewed systems for its surface, sub-surface, and airborne requirements – each of these concepts serves as proof of Naval Headquarters’ (NHQ) seriousness in the matter.
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)
Beyond Koncept Israr
The Israr AUV is a 3.0 m long, 0.3 m diameter AUV designed to execute fully pre-programmed or adaptive missions at speeds of up to 7 knots, diving to depths of 300 m for 4 hours on rechargeable Li-ion batteries.
Its stated roles include ISR, underwater exploration, harbour/channel monitoring, ocean-floor mapping, bathymetric survey, and seawater profiling – i.e., the typical mission set of small coastal AUVs.
Navigation is handled by an autopilot using GPS and a Doppler Velocity Log (DVL). The payload sensors consist of a camera with lights, side-scanning and forward-looking sonars, a CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) probe, a water ingress detector, and, finally, TPM (temperature-humidity-pressure) sensors.
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