UK companies to collaborate on autonomous underwater craft for naval use

UK technology companies MSubs and Sonardyne have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the development of long-endurance, autonomous underwater vessels for the UK defence sector.

The MOU will see the two companies working to integrate and evaluate Sonardyne’s commercial-off-the-shelf navigation, communications and imaging payloads into MSubs’ nine-metre-long extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle (XLUUV) to provide naval forces with enhanced situational awareness across the underwater battlespace.

Sonardyne will supply a suite of systems that include a hybrid inertial-Doppler navigation sensor suitable for GNSS-denied environments, a long-range tracking, command and control instrument, and a forward-looking obstacle avoidance sonar (FLS) jointly developed with sister company Wavefront Systems.

MSubs’ XLUUV has been selected by the Royal Navy to help it understand the future roles for XLUUVs for surveillance, reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missions, and deliver new capabilities to the organisation years earlier than otherwise possible.