DIU and US Navy select Anduril for XL-AUV program

The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the US Navy have selected Anduril Industries and its Dive-XL autonomous submarine to participate in the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform (CAMP) Project. This project aims to address a persistent operational gap beneath the waves: the United States needs the ability to deploy large payloads across extended ranges underwater.

Anduril was selected via DIU’S competitive Commercial Solutions Opening after having completed the longest Extra-Large Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (XL-AUV) demonstration conducted to date, validating extended-range performance and system endurance in operationally relevant conditions.

Anduril says its autonomous undersea vehicles to-date have accumulated over 42,355km and 6,752 hours of mission time, proving the maturity, reliability, and long-duration capability required for distributed maritime operations. It has already demonstrated Dive-XL has 100 hours of submerged endurance and aims to achieve a 1,000nm fully submerged mission.

Much of this work has been done in Australia where Anduril last year won a $1.7 billion contract to build ‘dozens’ of Ghost Shark XL-AUVs in Sydney for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Dive-XLs.

CAMP is a US Department of War effort to rapidly prototype and field XL-AUVs. Under its auspices, Anduril will complete a long-duration, operationally representative demonstration of Dive-XL within 4 months of contract award. Anduril currently operates multiple Dive-XL vehicles in the United States. For the US Navy, CAMP is a significant step forward — enabling experimentation with XL-AUVs at meaningful scale and establishing a deliberate pathway toward wide-scale adoption and operational deployment.

Anduril’s ability to deliver Dive-XL is rooted in a record of successful execution, delivering an XL-AUV and dedicated production facility for the RAN on timelines that traditional programs could not match. Today, Anduril is producing Dive-XLs in Sydney, Australia, and has a purpose-built facility in Quonset Point, Rhode Island, designed to deliver dozens of Dive-XLs and hundreds of Dive-LDs per year.

As events in Ukraine and the Black Sea have demonstrated, long-range autonomous undersea systems have the potential to change the balance beneath the waves. They are intended to allow the United States and its allies to extend reach, hold risk at distance, and operate persistently in contested environments. Control of the undersea domain underwrites control of the sea itself, says Anduril, and Dive-XL marks the shift from concept to reality.

Anduril has also announced an agreement to acquire space domain awareness and missile defence company ExoAnalytic Solutions.

This acquisition will combine Exo’s industry-leading missile defence and space domain awareness capabilities, including its vast sensor network and proven data analytics, with Anduril’s software-defined expertise in autonomy, command and control, and rapid fielding, said Anduril in a media release. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.