The US Department of Defense, through the Defense Innovation Unit, has awarded Cellula Robotics a contract for the construction of a new autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in line with its combat autonomous maritime platform initiative.
The craft will be powered by a fuel cell and will feature commercial off-the-shelf components. The AUV will be capable of long-endurance missions of up to 45 days and can carry and deploy various payloads.
The vehicle was built to be able to survey up to 5,000 kilometres of seabed during a single dive, significantly increasing operational efficiency.
Possible applications for the AUV include anti-submarine warfare; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; deploying multiple listening stations on the seafloor for extended periods; and deploying other types of unmanned craft such as remotely operated vehicles and smaller AUVs.
The completed AUV will have a length of 11.7 metres, a hull diameter of 1.66 metres, and a displacement of 8,000 kg.
The craft can be integrated with third-party autonomy packages to adapt to specific mission objectives during its missions, thus further enhancing efficiency.
