Washington: Anduril Industries unveiled a new family of autonomous underwater vehicles called Copperhead, designed to meet military and commercial needs for larger fleets of uncrewed maritime vessels.
“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,” the company said in a statement.
The product line includes two variants, each offered in two different sizes. The baseline Copperhead is designed for rapid-response missions, the firm said, including environmental monitoring, search and rescue and infrastructure inspection.
The vehicle, which can reach speeds greater than 30 knots, can carry a range of payloads, including active and passive sensors and magnetometers, which can detect changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.
The Copperhead-M variant is a munition that can be deployed from a larger system, specifically Anduril’s Dive-LD and Dive-XL vessels. It offers “torpedo-like” capabilities and is designed for mass production, Anduril said.
A Dive-XL can carry dozens of the smaller Copperhead-M and “multiple” of the larger size missile. “This makes it possible for a fleet of Dive-XLs to control ocean areas with an unprecedented level of autonomous seapower,” Anduril said.
