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| Science & Technology |
| This Is Australia's Testbed For Its Upcoming ‘Ghost Shark' Unmanned Combat Submarines |
| 2022-12-19 |
| [TheDrive] Anduril Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of defense technology company Anduril Industries, is showing off the testbed it will use to develop the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) future extra-large drone submarine. The upcoming unmanned underwater vehicle, or UUV, which will succeed this testbed, was officially named Ghost Shark during a ceremony on Monday as a nod to the Royal Australian Air Force’s Ghost Bat drone designed by Boeing Australia, and the likelihood of arming Ghost Shark sometime down the line is already being discussed. Ghost Shark will be developed under a partnership between Anduril Australia, the RAN, and the Defense Science and Technology Group (DSTG). Commercial negotiations for the co-funded design began in May of this year, and the group effort will support Australia’s overarching Extra Large Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (XL-AUV) program, which seeks to rapidly produce an affordable, autonomous, long-endurance drone that can be tailored for a variety of military and non-military missions. The finalized deal is now valued at about $100 million, and three total XL-AUVs are currently under contract with the RAN to be delivered over the next three years. The customizable testbed displayed on Monday is dubbed ‘Dive-LD’, or Dive-Large Displacement, and was gained by Anduril when it acquired UUV manufacturer Dive Technologies this February. Anduril will leverage Dive-LD as a jumping-off point as it continues fleshing out the future Ghost Shark. During the Monday ceremony, RAN Rear Adm. Peter Quinn explained that Dive-LD will be used for the experimentation, testing, and validation of potential capabilities to better define what will be Ghost Shark’s concepts of operations and mission set. Each of the three planned prototypes will be iterative, meaning that the systems will vary in respective capabilities and will evolve progressively. Submarines in general are a major aspect of military activity in the Indo-Pacific region as tensions with China continue to rise, and will only become more so in the coming years. In terms of Australia specifically, the nation is slated to receive a brand new fleet of at least eight nuclear-capable attack submarines to bolster its maritime presence in the region. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #3 |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2022-12-19 16:03 |
| #2 Will there be a smaller Baby Shark variant? |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2022-12-19 09:10 |
| #1 Drone subs. The next step in robotics. In 2040 wars will be fought by robots. Marines will have reunions and toast 'the good old days.' |
| Posted by: Slavising Unineting5672 2022-12-19 07:43 |