Anduril Dive-XL Uncrewed Submarine
Anduril's new underwater robot can stay fully submerged longer than any other vehicle in its class, making it harder to detect.
Now, the American defense tech sensation says it's sending its Dive-XL uncrewed submarine for a record-breaking 1,000 nautical mile, fully submerged mission in 2025. The mission will be the first of its kind for an Extra-Large Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (XL-AUV), which typically start at the size of a large city bus.
Unveiling the submarine, Anduril said scalable, autonomous underwater systems are critical for national security. The startup emphasized that China has the world's largest navy and shipbuilding industry. China has been running circles around the U.S. Navy in bringing vessels to production while conducting joint naval exercises with Russia.
"The United States and its allies and partners will not be able to close the gap in traditional, crewed ships and submarines on a relevant timeline to bolster deterrence this decade," the company said. "To complement our enduring force, while reducing reliance on those on those costly and vulnerable crewed platforms, we must build fleets of low-cost, autonomous assets that deliver enhanced capability at a fraction of the cost."
The underwater drone's modular design allows for swappable payloads to fit different missions like spying, mapping, and striking targets. It's built with off-the-shelf materials like aluminum and fiberglass so hundreds of them can be manufactured and quickly deployed to counter larger naval fleets.
The design for manufacturability caters to the Pentagon's desire to deploy scalable, cost-effective technologies to counterbalance China's growing capabilities. China has reportedly developed several uncrewed submarines comparable to the Dive-XL, including the HSU-001 Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (LDUUV), the UUV-300CB armed XLUUV unveiled by Poly Technologies earlier in 2024, and an unnamed XLUUV revealed through satellite imagery in 2022.
According to Anduril, Dive-XLs operate almost daily in Australia and the United States. The vehicle recently completed a 100-houor continuous mission, the longest for its class.
The Dive-XL has been missionized as part of Anduril's Ghost Shark program with the Royal Australian Navy and the Defence Science and Technoloy Group (DSTG). As part of the $140 million contract, Anduril agreed to manufacture three XL-AUVs within three years. The Ghost Shark program is ahead of schedule, with the first manufactured prototype delivered in April 2024.