Anduril Launches AUV With Torpedo Capabilities

Defence technology firm Anduril has launched Copperhead, a new autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) designed to be launched from larger drones and capable of carrying an explosive warhead.

The uncrewed system comes in two designs, Copperhead & Copperhead-M, the latter being described by the firm as “a munition variant that arms autonomous vehicles with affordable and mass-producible torpedo-like capabilities.”

The firm more specifically describes Copperhead as “the first torpedo capability built to be carried by autonomous systems.”

The AUV comes in two sizes, Copperhead-100 and Copperhead-500, named for their payload capacities. The smaller version measures just over one foot in diameter and is 106 inches long, affording up to 100lb of payload capacity. Copperhead-500 has a 21-inch diameter and 163-inch length, supporting payloads of up to 500lb.

Both are capable of travelling at speeds in excess of 30 knots; on-board AI systems use sonar and imaging data to enable them to detect objects, track targets, and avoid obstacles.

As well as carrying explosives, they can be configured to carry a range of other size-dependent payloads including active and passive sensing systems, acoustic communication relays, magnetometers, side-scan sonars, and chemical detection packages.

Both are designed to be launched from larger AUVs, including Anduril’s own Dive-XL and Dive-LD XLAUVs. The firm also announced this week that it has just delivered the first Dive-LD AUV to the U.S. Navy's Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group 1.

As per a company press statement: “Victory at sea will require large fleets of autonomous subsea, surface, and air vehicles capable of bringing advanced awareness and overwhelming adversaries with mass maritime effects.

“With the Dive-LD and Dive-XL, Copperhead enables a comprehensive, intelligent maritime capability that allows operators to quickly respond to threats in the undersea battlespace, at a fraction of the cost of legacy options.”

• You can read more details on the Anduril website