Dumped ammunition, legacy chemical weapons and improvised devices attached to ship hulls are a growing concern for maritime safety and security. Corroding munitions on the seabed pose environmental and operational risks, while so‑called “narco‑torpedoes” fixed to hulls are used to smuggle large quantities of drugs beneath the waterline. Traditional inspection tools can detect anomalies, but they cannot easily tell what is inside a sealed object.

The UnderSec‑funded CMIM directly addresses this gap by providing in‑situ, non‑destructive confirmation of the contents of suspicious items. Once cameras, sonars or magnetometers locate an anomaly, the ROV‑mounted module irradiates it with pulsed neutrons and reads the resulting gamma‑ray spectrum to infer whether explosives, narcotics or other hazardous substances are present.

This layered approach—first localising, then chemically characterising underwater and hull‑borne objects—offers a more reliable basis for decisions about clearance operations, law‑enforcement actions and the protection of critical underwater infrastructure and port facilities.