A HAVELSAN-developed underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV), funded by the company, appeared at the NUSRET 2026 exhibition on 7 October. HAVELSAN described an operating depth of up to 300 metres and applications spanning military and civilian work.
According to HAVELSAN's Underwater Systems Group Leader Zekiye Bilinç Serintuna, the vehicle combines sensors and associated systems for navigation and precise positioning. Its intended tasks include mine countermeasures, search and rescue, ship-hull inspection and monitoring oil pipelines, she said.
Turkish and foreign representatives viewed 16 manufacturers' displays at Alsancak Port during the day-long exhibition, including underwater systems, sonar equipment and unmanned maritime platforms. HAVELSAN was among the participating companies at the industry display accompanying NUSRET's mine-warfare and interoperability activities.
NUSRET 2026 is scheduled to run from 6–16 October in the Gulf of İzmir and off Karadeniz Ereğli. Türkiye's defence ministry listed the navy, air force and coast guard alongside allied mine-countermeasure groups and specialist underwater teams among its participants.
Training covers the planning, execution and evaluation of mine-warfare operations by participating units, according to the ministry's exercise description. It cites drifting mines in the Black Sea and potential work clearing moored mines after the Russia–Ukraine war among the reasons for sustaining mine-countermeasure training.
Among the participating international mine-countermeasure groups are North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Standing Mine Countermeasures Group 2 and the Bulgaria–Romania–Türkiye Black Sea task group. The ministry also named the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Kuwait, Romania and Oman as contributors of explosive-ordnance-disposal and autonomous-underwater-vehicle teams.
A 4 October ministry notice identified additional observer delegations from Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Morocco, Malaysia and Ukraine, among other countries. These delegations add international representation alongside the participating naval groups and specialist underwater teams involved in the mine-warfare exercise.
HAVELSAN's separate AVISTA research announcement, issued on 21 August, outlines an underwater-autonomy project preceding the NUSRET exhibition. Subsequently shown at TEKNOFEST Mavi Vatan, the company-funded project addresses underwater positioning, three-dimensional mapping and low-signature autonomous operation.
HAVELSAN is developing AVISTA with a remotely operated test vehicle capable of movement with six degrees of freedom. The company envisages integrating the architecture with different underwater vehicles and coordinating their operation through its ADVENT combat management system.
The project also addresses underwater sensor availability and cost, targeting positioning without satellite navigation. Transferable algorithms feature in the research, including capabilities intended for ÇAKA, HAVELSAN's submersible hybrid unmanned maritime vehicle.
Earlier maritime work includes SANCAR's February 2026 commissioning into the Turkish Navy, following development with Yonca Shipyard. HAVELSAN equips the armed unmanned surface vessel with ADVENT ROTA, a derivative designed to provide command-and-control and mission-management functions specifically for unmanned vessels.
For SANCAR, HAVELSAN lists radar, electro-optical cameras and sonar alongside mine-countermeasure and search-and-rescue roles, with an open architecture accommodating different mission payloads. It also describes coordination between crewed and unmanned platforms, a portable ground-control station and redundant communications using radio, satellite and mobile networks.
AVISTA's August development plan separately targets operational readiness in 2027 for new underwater products and solutions. HAVELSAN also outlined sea trials and support for the ADVENT MÜREN underwater combat-management family as part of the research effort's planned next stages.
